UFOs: A Scientific Debate 0393007391, 9780393007398

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Editors' Introduction
Selected UFO Cases
Part I: Background
1. Education and the UFO Phenomenon (Thornton Page)
2. Historical Perspectives: Photos of UFO's (Wm Hartmann)
3. Astronomers' Views on UFO's (Franklin Roach)
Part II: Observations
4. Twenty-one Years of UFO Reports (J. Allen Hynek)
5. Science in Default: Twenty-two Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations (James McDonald)
6. UFO's - The Modern Myth (Donald H. Menzel)
7. Unusual Radar Echoes (Kenneth R. Hardy)
8. Motion Pictures of UFO's (R.M.L. Baker Jr)
Part III: Social and Psychological Aspects
9. Sociological Perspectives on UFO Reports (Robert L. Hall)
10. Psychology and Epistemology of UFO Interpretations (Douglass Price-Williams)
11. Psychiatry and UFO Reports (Lester Grinspoon and Alan D. Persky)
12. On the Abilities and Limitations of Witnesses of of UFO's and Similar Phenomena (Frank Drake)
13. Influence of the Press and Other Mass Media (Walter Sullivan)
Part IV: Retrospective and Perspective
14. UFO's: The Extraterrestrial and Other Hypotheses (Carl Sagan)
15. The Nature of Scientific Evidence: A Summary (Philip Morrison)
Addendum: Discussion
Index
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UFO's-A sc1ENT1F1c DEBATE

UFO'sA SCIENTIFIC DEBATE EDITED BY

CARL SAGAN and

THORNTON PAGE

The Norton Library

W • W • NORTON & COMPANY• INC •

NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT

@ 1972

BY CORNELL UNIVERSITY

First published in the Norton Library 1974 by arrangement with Cornell University Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published simultaneously in Canada by George J. McLeod Limited, Toronto Books That Live The Norton imprint on a book means that in the publisher's estimation it is a book not for a·"single season but for the years. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: UFO's-a scientific debate. Reprint of the ed. published by Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y. Papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Boston on Dec. 26-27, 1969. Includes bibliographies. 1. Flying saucers-Congresses. I. Sagan, Carl, 1934ed. IL Page, Thornton, ed. III. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 74-10560 TL789.AlU23 1974 001.9'4 ISBN 0-393-00739-1 Printed in the United States of America 6 7 8 9 0

••• ••• •••

Contents

Contributors

ix

Editors' Introduction

xi

Selected UFO Cases

xxi

PART I I BACKGROUND

1 Education and the UFO Phenomenon

2 Historical Perspectives: Photos of UFO's

Thornton Page William K. Hartmann

11

Franklin Roach

23

J. Allen Hynek

37

James E. McDonald

52

3 Astronomers' Views on UFO's

PART 11

3

I OBSERVATIONS

4 Twenty-one Years of UFO Reports 5 Science in Default: Twenty-two Years of

Inadequate UFO Investigations

Appendix: FourCases 1. South-Central U.S.,July 17,1957 56 2. Lakenheath and Bentwaters, England,August 13-14, 1956 3. HanedaAFB, Tokyo,Japan,August 5-6, 1952 90 115 4. KirtlandAFB, New Mexico, November 4, 1957

6 UFO'S-The Modern Myth

Donald H. Menzel

Appendixes 146 1. ThePapuaCase,June,July,andAugust,1959 2. Clearwater, Florida, July 4, 1964 153 3. The Spectacular UFO's of March 3,1968 155 4. The PhantomPlane, Colorado S prings, May 13, 1967 5. Do Flying Saucers Move in Straight Lines? 163 6. UFO's inArt 174 177 7. Flying Saucers of the Bible

7 Unusual Radar Echoes 8 Motion Pictures of UFO's

70

1 23

161

Kenneth R. Hardy

R. M. L. Baker, Jr.

1 83 1 90

vi

/

Contents

PA RT 111 SO CIA L A N D P SYCH O LOG I CA L ASPE CTS 9 Soc iolog ical Perspe ctives o n UFO Reports Rob ert L. Hall

213

10 Psychol ogy and Ep istemology of UFO I nte rp retat ions Douglass R. Price-Williams

224

/

11

Psy ch i at ry and UFO Repo rts

Lester Grinspoon and Alan D. Persk y

233

12 O n the Abil it ies and Lim itat io ns of Witnesses of U FO's and Si m i l ar Ph enom ena

1 3 I nflu ence of th e Press and Other Mass Media PA RT IV

14

I

Frank D. Drake

247

Walter Sullivan

258

RETRO SPE CTIVE A N D PE RS PE CTIVE

U FO' s: Th e Ext raterrestrial and O ther Hypoth eses

Carl Sagan

265

Philip Morrison

276

15 Th e N at u re of Scientific Evidence: A Su m m ary

ADDEN DUM D iscussion Repo rted by the Editors

291

I ndex

303

••• ••• •••

I llustrations

Figure 3-1. Average separation of stars one from another, with distances from the sun to nearby stars 24 Figure 3-2 . An attempt to interpolate the space density o f objects having sizes between those of galactic dust and stars 25 Figure 3-3 . Typical photometric record around the sky showing deflections due to individual stars 30 Figure 3-4. Photometric record showing signals labeled UBO 31 not due to known astronomical objects 42 Figure 4-1. Strangeness/probability diagram of UFO sightings Figure 5-1. Map of July 17, 1957, UFO episode 63 184 Figure 7-1. Unusual radar propagation conditions Figure 7-2. Dot angels as seen at Bedford, Massachusetts, 1966 185 187 Figure 7-3. Photographs of range-height indicators Figure 8-1. Land survey of the filming region of the Great Falls, Montana, sighting 192 Figure 8-2 . Trajectory of anomalistic unidentified flying object observed in the Great Falls, Montana, motion picture 193 Figure 8-3 . Variation of angular diameter of UFO's with time in the Great Fal ls, Montana, motion picture 193 Figure 8-4. Control reflectivity experiments with motion picture camera similar to that used in the Great Falls, Montana, 194 sighting Figure 8-5. An enlargement of one of the Great Falls frames compared with an experimental frame of jet aircraft 195 Figure 8-6. Altitude as a function of azimuth after frame 65 of 196 the Great Falls film Figure 8-7 . The angular separation distance of the system of UFO's as a function of time for the Great Falls motion picture 196

viii

I

Il l ustrations

Figure 8-8. A map of Great Fal l s, Montana, indicating possibl e UFO motions for a variety of assumed distances Figure 8-9. Pl ots of relative motions of unidentified flying objects in the Tremonton, Utah, fil m Figure 8-1 0. Enlargement of a frame of the Tremonton, Utah, fil m showing the tendency for the observed objects to move in pairs Figure 8-1 1 . Enl argement of a frame of the Mol ine, Il l inois, fil m Figure 8-1 2. Microphotograph of the 1 963 Venezuel a object Figure 8-1 3. Two views of the McMinnvill e, Oregon, fil m's UFO Figure 1 2-1 . Three Pol aroid photographs of a UFO, taken as described in the text

1 97 1 99

200 203 207 208 249

Tables Tabl e 1 -1 . Tabl e 1 -2. Tabl e 2-1 . Tabl e 3-1 . Table 3-2 . Table 3-3. Table 3-4. eters

General UFO publications in Engl ish, 1 948-1 969 Undergraduate majors at Wesleyan The fate of some of the "best" UFO reports The "Dol phin" Formul a Pl anet X Astronomical tel escopes of the world Comparison of Prairie Network and airgl ow photom-

6 7 12 23 27 28 29

•••

•••

•••

Contributors

A symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, sponsored by the Ameri­ can Association for the Advancement of Science, was held in Boston, Massachusetts, on December

26

and

27, 1 969.

The following partici­

pants contributed their papers to this book. A number of these papers have been considerably revised.

Robert M. L. Baker, Jr., Senior Scientist, Computer Sciences Corpora­ tion, and Lecturer, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Uni­ versity of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California

90024.

Frank D. Drake, Professor of Astronomy, and Director, National As­ tronomy and Ionosphere Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

1 48 5 0.

Lester Grinspoon, Associate Oinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and Director of Psychiatry (Research), Massachu­ setts Mental Health Center, Boston, Massachusetts

02 1 1 5 .

Robert L. Hall, Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, Illinois

60680.

Kenneth R. Hardy, Chief, Weather Radar Branch, Meteorology Labora­ tory, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Bedford, Massa­ chusetts William

0 1 7 3 0.

K. Hartmann, Assistant Professor, Lunar and Planetary Labo­

ratory, University of Arizona; presently Senior Scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona

J.

85704.

Allen Hynek, Professor and Chairman, Department o f Astronomy,

ix

x

Co ntributo rs

and Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwest­ ern University, Evanston, Ill i nois 6020 1 . James E . McDonald,* Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, and Senior Physicist, I nstitute for Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 8572 1 . Donald H . Menzel, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy and Profes­ sor of Astrophysics, Emeritus, H arvard University, and former Director, H arvard Coll ege Observatory ; Senior Scientist Emeritus, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, M assachusetts 02 1 3 8 . Philip Morrison, Professor o f Physics, M assachusetts I nstitute of Tech­ nology, Cambridge, M assachusetts 02 1 39 . Thornton Page, Professor of Astronomy, Wesl eyan University, and Research Associate, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas 7705 8 .t Al an D. Persky, Associate i n Medicine (Psychiatry), Peter Bent Brigham Hospital ; Consultant i n Psychi atry, M assachusetts M ental Health Center; Clinical I nstructor in Psych iatry, H arvard M edical School, Boston, M assachusetts 02 1 1 5 . Dougl ass R. Price-Williams, Professor o f Psychology, Departments of Psychi atry and Anthropology, University of California at Los A nge­ l es, Los Angeles, California 90024 . . Franklin Roach, Affil iate Astronomer, University o f H awaii, Honolulu, H aw aii 96822. Carl Sagan, Professor of Astronomy, and Director, Laboratory for Pl an­ etary Studies, Cornell U niversity, Ithaca, New York 1 48 5 0. Walter Sull ivan, Science Editor, New York Times, New York, New York 1 003 6. *Deceased.

t Since

1971, Research Astrophysicist, Naval Research Laboratory, Wash i ng­

ton, D.C. 20390.

••• •••

•••

Ed itors' Introduct ion

What does an average person do when he sees something strange, inexplicable, or haunting? How does a scientist react when confronted with observations he cannot readily classify-observations that may challenge some of his most deeply held beliefs? What happens when the observations appear to bear on questions of national security, so that a branch of the armed forces is called upon to perform investigations of a phenomenon it does not understand? What happens when an attempt is made to confront diverse points of view about these e'fents? This book explores what happens. The controversy over unidentified flying objects has for more than twenty years been a lively topic, with representatives of the United States Air Force, the scientific community, and i nterested public organizations frequently at odds one with another. The public in­ terest in the subject, but only a little of the scientific interest, derives from the idea that unidentified flying objects are space vehicles sent to the earth from elsewhere in the universe. Unambiguous evidence of the extraterrestrial origin of UFO's is obviously not at hand ; otherwise there would be no basis for disagreement. Primarily in response to pub­ lic interest in the topic, the Air Force sponsored a two-year study di­ rected by Professor E. U. Condon at the University of Colorado; the re­ sults were published as Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (New York: Bantam Books, 1 969), usually referred to as the Colorado Report or the Condon Report. In the year preceding the publication of the Condon Report, the edixi

xii

Editors' Introduction

tors of this book approached the American Association for the Ad­ vancement of Science w ith the idea of organizing a general symposium at an annual meeting of the Associ ation to discuss the UFO issue. The AAAS Board approved such a symposium for the December 1968 meeting in Dallas, Texas. But, largely because the Condon Report­ one of the most detailed examinations of the subject ever performed­ would not have been published in time to be digested for the Dallas meeting, and in part because of opposition from some scientists, the symposium was postponed for a year and was finally held on December 26 and 27, 1 969, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. The organizing committee for the symposium at this meeting consisted of Philip Morrison, Depart­ ment of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Walter Orr Roberts, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado ; Carl Sagan, Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell Uni­ versity ; and Thornton Page (chairman of the AAAS special commit­ tee), Department of Astronomy, Wesleyan University. The symposium could not h ave been held without the steadfast courage (sometimes i n the face o f very heated opposition) o f the American Association for the Advancement of Science and, in particular, of the Association's then president, Professor Roberts. The topic of the symposium is, to .. the surprise of no one, controver­ sial. The AAAS special committee spent a year and a half arranging a program that attempted to present as fairly and as logically as possible the facts and alternative interpretations that have been offered . The pres­ ent volume, an only slightly compressed version of the fifteen invited talks and the discussion that followed, is not intended to establish any one interpretation as the "correct" one, but rather to offer the observa­ tions and some of the speculations generated by a crit ical exam ina­ tion of the evidence-the traditional scientific method . Scientists, be ing human be ings, do not always approach controversial subjects dispas­ sionately, and the reader will occasionally find i n these pages the heat of passion as well as the l ight of scientific inquiry. The opposition to holding this symposium, presented in part by some very distinguished scientists, was based upon the view that if such an

Editors' Introduction

xiii

unscientific subject as the UFO controversy is discussed, w e might just as well organize symposia on astrology, th e ideas of I mmanuel Velikov­ sky, and so forth. We believe th is conclusion is substantially correct, but it is not the reductio ad absurdum that its authors seem to beli eve it is.* All of us who teach at colleges and universities are aware of a dri ft away from science. Some of the most sensitive, intelligent, and con­ cerned young people are finding science i ncreasingly less attractive and less relevant to their problems than was the case for previous genera­ tions. We all agree that th is drift is deplorable. It must be due in part to their mi sunderstanding of what science is about, the scientists' failure to co mmunicate its power and beauty. At the same time there is a range of borderl ine subj ects that have high popularity among these same people -including U FO's, astrology, and the wr itings of ".' el ikovsky. We be­ lieve that part of the reason for th is popularity is precisely that they are often beyond the pale of established science, that they often outrage conservative scientists, and th at they seem to deny the scientific method. We have only to pick up the New York Times Book Review (Septem­ ber 2 1 , 1 969, for example) to find books advertised under such rubrics as "Science says it shouldn't work-but can't explain why it does!" or " Long-suppressed by so-called 'orthodox science' " or "Unearths new evidence th at shakes smug complacency of Establishment scientists." But while we may deplore this trend, particularly in its extreme vari­ ant as a religious cult, it seems to us unprofitable to ignore it. To talk of "dign ify ing it by discussing it" is to misunderstand these attitudes. They already are dign ified in the sense of having widespread newspaper and magazine coverage which reaches many more Americans, both sci­ entists and laymen, than, for example, the scientific journals that gener­ ally avoid such discussion. There are some th ings we can expect of scientific symposia on such topics and oth er things we can not expect. We will not convert true be­ lievers, regardless of the strength of our arguments. One religious sect *

Th is and the following e le ven paragr aphs are adapted from a letter by Ca rl

Sagan dated September 29, 1969, and address e d to participants in th e sy mposium, the Board of the Amer ican Association for the Advancement of Science , and s o me other intereste d parties.

xiv

E d ito rs' I nt ro d u ctio n

confidently predicted the world would end in 1 9 1 4. Since the world has apparently not ended, one would expect the membership of th is sect to be close to zero. This is not the case; its membersh ip has in fact been monotonically increasing since 1 9 1 4. But what can be done in such symposia is to confront unscientific claims and methods with the power of the scientific method. The habits of critical interrogation and of sus­ pending judgment in the absence of adequate data are unfortunately un­ common in everyday life. Science has itself become a kind of religion, and many pronounce­ ments cloaked in scientific attire are blandly accepted by much of the public. We believe that organizations like the AAAS have a major obli­ gation to arrange for confrontations on precisely those science-related subjects that catch the public eye. Previously such confrontations have served science well. For example, in the Huxley-Wilberforce confronta­ tion on evolution, the novel position has stood the test of time, but the bel ief th at the asteroid Icarus would impact the earth in 1 968 has not stood the test of tim e. I n both cases, science h as been served well by demonstrations of its power and p redictiveness. Recent meet ings of the AAAS have shown salutary trends toward increased public relevance -largely on the application of technology for the public good. There seems to us to be an equally important area which has not been ade­ quately stressed, namely, the application of scientific th ink ing to prob­ lems of human interest. Symposia on such subjects as unidentified flying objects can play a significant role in correcting this om ission. There are other topics that might illustrate the scientific method as well or better; but not all of these are in the public eye. All the speak­ ers in th is symposium have made recognized scientific contributions. When there is a difference of opinion between scientists with such es­ tablished credentials, we believe the scientific community is honor­ bound to keep the lines of communication open and to aid constructive discussion. We do not see how such a symposium can fail to serve sci­ ence well. A similar position has been stated in the document " Science and the Future," a conference summ ary of a jo int meeting sponsored by the Brit­ ish Association for the Advancement of Science and by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, April 1 3 - 1 9, 1 969, in

Ed ito rs' Introd uction

xv

Boulder, Colorado. In a d iscussion of "Education throughout Life" the following paragraphs appear:

Students are often taught "the scientific method" in a rigid and formal way which neglects the role of creativity, which reduces its intellectual and social value, and which i mplies that it is a l imited sequence of steps. I t should, instead, b e thought of as a continuing series of predictions, tests (with adeq uate controls), and creative hypotheses, and it can only be thor­ oughly understood by active involve ment in this continuing process. There is danger in mistaken ideas amongst the general public of what constitutes a scientific experi ment; many "experiments" are performed by individuals, but few of them are scientific in any sense. It may well be far more i mportant to have a large body of people who know how to choose between alternatives on public pol icy matters based on science, or at the least to be able to fol­ low complex arguments, than it is to have people understa�d detailed proce­ dures of scientific methods. Perhaps the Associations should i nclude in their programs doubtfully scientific areas of current public interest, such as astrol­ ogy, ex tra-sensory perception, and unidentified fly ing objects, to show how these can be considered in a scientific way. I t is clear to us that the present and future well being of mankind de­ pends upon scientific knowledge. Distrust of science, however, commonly arises from ignorance, or from a mistaken idea of the motivations of scien­ tists. It is very i mportant for young people to know that a "self-correcting" process is inherent in science. Although scientists are aware of this, young people m ust learn that science and scientists are not free from error and other limitations. Positive and creative attitudes should be promoted, espe­ cially at Association meetings, rather than mere negative or apologetic stands. We consider that it is desirable to have courses at school level on choice­ m aking, and o n the difficult ies of making true judgments when o ne is too close to a subject. The Associations should help in d iscovering such courses if they exist, in developing them if they do not yet exist, and in any case by promoting continuing discussion and study through symposia and other means, and by expressing publicly their concerns about these matters. A conscious and explicit presentation of val ue-judgments is needed at all stages, together with statements of what choices are invol ved and of what possibly d ifferent points of view may exist. What is good at the present time in one field and for one country may be evil for the future, or in another field, or for another country or for the

xv i

E d ito rs' Introduct io n

world. Decisio ns involving value-judgments must be m ade, and we should stress that the avoidance of decision is in itself a decision.»

The statement was authored by a subgroup chaired by Kenneth Hut­ ton of the British Association, with William Kabisch of the AAAS as Rapporteur and the following scientists as members: E. U. Condon, Ian Cox, Steven Dedijer, D ame Kathl een Lonsdale, Robert Morison, and Carl Sagan. The order of presentation of topics in this book has been slightly al­ tered from that in the original symposium for reasons of coherence. The first section is introductory and historical ; the second is largely devoted to the observations and debates on their interpretation; the third, to so­ cial and psychological aspects of the UFO problem ; and the fourth is a retrospective and perspective. The participants are astronomers, physi­ cists, sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and a representative of the communications media, and they include most of the scientists pr i­ marily involved in discussion of UFO's over the years. This book begins with a collection of UFO cases, including some of the instructive, puzzl ing, or fashionable ones discussed from various po ints of view later in the book. The first paper, by Thornton Page, argues that while much of the UFO reporting has been abysmally sensa­ tional and inaccurate, widespread public interest in the subject. viable �· to the present day, makes the discussion of UFO's an ideal med ium for introducing many related scientific issues. William H artmann and Frankl i p Roach, both professional astronomers who participated in the preparation of the Condon Report, present different perspectives on the UFO problem. Dr. Hartmann discusses a range of misapprehended nat­ ural phenomena that have been identified as UFO's, considers the pho­ tograph ic evidence on UFO's wh ich he has stud ied extensively, and con­ cludes that "there may be fewer th an a dozen [cases] that involve phenomena marginally outside the borders of accepted science. " Dr. Roach argues that the cumulative sky coverage of astronomical tele­ scopes is so small that no strong negative conclusions can be drawn from the fact that professional astronomers have not reported U FO's. *"Science and the Future," June 1969, Appendix 2. American Association for the Advancement of Science. ·

E d ito rs' Int roduction

xv i i

H e suggests that there may be large numbers o f civilizations substan­ tially in advance of our own which are capable of interstellar space flight. J. Allen Hynek summarizes his twenty-one years of experience with UFO reports as principal scientific consultant to the U.S. Air Force Proj­ ect Bluebook. After "detailed examination of thousands ·of reports and interrogation of hundreds of witnesses" Dr. Hynek concludes that the unexplained cases "do not specify any known physical event . . . [or] any known psychological event or process." He believes that puzzling cases have been explained away in much too cavalier a fashion, that there is a convention of ridicule which prevents interesting cases from seeing the light of day, and that the UFO phenomenon demands serious scientific attention. He is cautious on the question of explaining the unresolved cases.

·

The late James McDonald was extremely critical of U.S. Air Force handling of the UFO problem but stressed that the inadequacies of Air Force investigations were due to incompetence rather than conspiracy. Charging inadequacy in all past UFO investigations, McDonald writes:

"I

speak not only from intimate knowledge of the past investigations,

but also from three years of detailed personal research, involving inter­ views with more than five hundred witnesses in selected UFO cases, chiefly in the United States. In my opinion, the UFO problem, far from being the 'nonsense problem' it has been labeled by many scientists, constitutes an area of extraordinary scientific interest." And he con­ cludes: "It is difficult for me to see any reasonable alternative to the hy­ pothesis that something in the nature of extraterrestrial devices en­ gaged in something in the nature of surveillance lies at the heart of the UFO problem." Donald Menzel, author of one of the earliest books on flying saucers and also a consultant to the Air Force Project Bluebook, contends that all of the UFO reports can be understood in terms of misapprehended natural phenomena. Some of these, he argues, may be very complex­ although most explanations turn out to be fundamentally simple. He uses meteorological, astronomical, biological, human technological, and psychological explanations for many puzzling cases and is critical of those who maintain there is a residuum of inexplicable cases. His report includes seven appendixes, four on particularly interesting cases, one on

xv i i i

Ed ito rs' I nt rod u ct io n

whether flying saucers tend to move in stra ight lines, and two on UFO's in art and in the Bible. Kenneth Hardy draws upon h is experience with ultrasens itive radar systems at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories. He de­ scribes how radar echoes can be caused by atmospheric refraction and offers remarkable cases of detection of single birds or insects over d is­ tances of many miles. R. M. L. Baker, Jr. , describes h i s detailed analy­ ses of four motion pictures of UFO's wh ich have features not com ­ pletely expl ained, in h is view, as well as about a dozen other films which he concludes were either hoaxes or photographs of natural phe­ nomena. Initiating the discussion of the social and psychological aspects of the UFO problem, Robert Hall discusses ru mor processes, bel ief systems, mass hysteria, hysterical contagion, and systematic misperception. He bel ieves, however, that some of the "hard-core UFO reports stand up better than many a court case" as far as witness credibility is concerned, and contends instead that scientists may have been unwill ing to accept evidence that threatens their bel ief systems. Douglass Price-Williams is interested in the epistemology of UFO reports and the extent to wh ich the actual natu re of the phenomenon is h idden by the attempt of the ob­ server to describe it. He bel ieves that a massive statistical search for in­ variants across a mass of puzzling repo rts may rev eal the intrinsic na­ ture of some of the puzzling reports. Lester Grinspoon and Alan Persky, drawing upon a background in psychiatry, are impressed by the unusual emotions exh ib ited by both witnesses and interpreters of UFO phenomena ( includ ing at least some of the participants in the symposium). Unlike other topics in scientific study, UFO's seem to rouse a fervor usually reserved for pol itics, mo­ ral ity, or rel igion. Drs. Grinspoon and Persky discuss a range of uncon­ scious mental processes, argu ing that a large and possibly growing frac­ tion of the community, wh ile generally normal, is subject to transient mental di sturbances in stressful situations. UFO's prov ide powerful and universal psychological symbols. I n a lucid discussion of the reliabi l ity of witnesses of scientific phe­ nomena, Frank Drake chooses three examples: ( l ) a case of seemingly clear-cut photographic evidence for a flying metall ic disk ; (2) the appar-

Ed itors' Introduct io n

x ix

ently verified report of the receipt of a television signal from a station three years off the air; and

(3)

conclusions drawn from eyewitness re­

ports of meteor falls. All three examples are from Professor Drake's personal experience and may shed considerable light on phenomena of the UFO type. Walter Sullivan, the science editor of the

New York Times, describes the connection between the UFO phenomenon and the

news media. He discusses the subtle impediments to more precise re­ porting and holds that at the very least the UFO phenomenon provides a useful case study of the processes that tend to mold our belief sys­ tems. In the first of two retrospective papers, Carl Sagan argues that there is insufficient evidence to exclude the possibility that some UFO's are space vehicles from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, but he main­ tains that other speculative hypotheses are equally probable or improba­ ble, and that the insignificance of our civilization and the vast distances between the stars make the extraterrestrial hypothesis unlikely.

He

discusses some of the psychological factors molding popular beliefs in UFO's. Philip Morrison's summary of what constitutes scientific evi­ dence is extremely rich in concrete cases connected with UFO's and is a model of critical analysis of controversial phenomena. In his remarks which opened the symposium,

Professor

Roberts

stressed his belief that the public understanding of science is at stake and that the borders between scientific and nonscientific discussion need explicit delineation. He expressed his hope that the discussion would be well balanced and provide that self-correcting process required for the advancement of science. We hope that the present volume contributes toward th is goal. CARL SAGAN

THORNTON PAGE

A C K N O WLE D G M E NTS The American Association for the Advancement of Science made the tapes of the three three-hour sessions (chaired by Professors Roberts, Sagan, and Page) available to us; we appreciate their cooperation.

xx

Edito rs' Int rod uction

We are particularly grateful to Mrs. M ary Szymanski for skillful ex­ traction of the texts of three full papers from noisy magnetic tape re­ cordings. The present volume would not have been possible without her help. Our thanks also to Mrs. Marye Wanlass for retyping much of the text of th is book, and to M iss Lucy Ahn and to the staff of Cornell University Press for help ing to see th is volume through the fi nal stages of publication. The index was prepared by Theodore Szymanski. Some of the material in Chapter 4 also appears in The UFO Experi­ ence by J . Allen Hynek (Chicago: Regnery, 1 972). We acknowledge with thanks those publishers and individuals who gave us permission to reproduce illustrations and other m aterial, including: the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers for perm ission to reproduce two figures from K. R. Hardy and I. Katz, in Proc. IEEE, April 1 969, pp. 470, 47 1; Bantam Books, Inc. , for permission to adapt Figures 3 and 4 from Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects by Dr. Edward U . Condon (Copyright © 1 968 by The Board o f Regents o f the Univer­ sity of Colorado) ; Flying Saucer Review for perm ission to print, in re­ v ised form, Donald M. Menzel's article which appears as h is Appendix 5 ; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for per­ m ission to reprint Appendix 2 of "Science and the Future," J une 1 969 ; Dr. David Atl as for perm ission to reproduce portions of a letter written to Carl Sagan, 29 September, 1 969; Professor Thomas A. Goudge for permission to reproduce parts of his letter to J . Allen Hynek; and the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for perm ission to reproduce letters written to Thornton Page and Donald M . Menzel in J anuary, 1 970.

••• ••• •••

Selected U FO Cases

In th e following brief summaries, each case is identified by the loca­ tion, time, and type of sighting. The types of sighti ngs are explai ned in Ch apter 4. Several of the authors refer to these illustrative cases later in th is book . These summaries were prepared by Thornton Page. Alas ka. J a n u a ry 22, 1952, 12:10 A. M . R ad a r

A strong target appeared on the radarscope, moving i n from the northeast, fairly high, at I ,500 miles per hour. Three jet fighters took off from an ai rbase I 00 miles to the south and were vectored toward the unknown by ground radar but never saw any visible target. When the ground radar was switched to short range, both unknown and fighter planes disappeared from the screen. Two of the fighters picked up a sta­ tionary target on thei r airborne radars over a period of I 0 minutes. (Air Force investigation concl uded th at these were ground-radar returns caused by pecular atmospheric condi tions.) Artesi a, New M exi co. Janua ry 16, 1952. Dayli ght D i s k

Two members of a balloon project from the General Mi lls Aeronau­ tical Research Laboratory and four other civilians observed two uniden­ tified aerial objects in the vicin ity of the balloon th ey were observing. The balloon was at an altitude of 1 1 2, 000 feet and was 1 1 0 feet in dia­ meter at the time of the observations. The objects were observed twice, once from Artesia, and once from the xx i

xxii

Sel ected U F O Cases

Artesia Ai rport. In the first instance , one object appeared to remai n motionless in the vici nity of, but apparently higher than, the balloon. It had twice the angular diameter of the balloon and its color w as a dull white. This observation was made by the two General Mills observers. A short time later the two observers and four ci vi lian pi lots were ob­ serving the balloon from the Artes ia Airport. Two objects at apparently extremely high alti tude were noticed coming toward the balloon from the northwest. They circled the balloon and flew off to the northeast. The duration of observation was about 40 seconds, and the two objects were the same color and size as the fi rst object observed from Artesia. The two objects were flyi ng side by si de, and when they appeared to circle the balloon, they temporarily disappeared, causing the observers to assume they were disk-shaped and had turned edge-on to b ank. Colo r a d o Sp ri ngs, Co l o ra d o . M ay 1 3, 1 967, 8:40 P . M . Rad a r

The weather was overcast, w ith scattered rain-and-sleet showers and gusty winds. As a Braniff airliner came in for a landi ng, the ground radar detected a target beyond it at about twice the range. As the plane landed, th is target pulled to the east and passed low over the airport (at 200-feet altitude, about a mile and a half from the control tower) . The tower operators, alerted by the radar operation, saw and heard nothing. The pi lot of another aircraft, 3 miles behind the Bran iff plane, saw noth ing when asked to look. (The Condon Report, p. 1 70, calls th is "one of the most puzzling radar cases on record .") D e a d w o o d , South Dak ot a , S eptembe r 22, 1 966, app rox i m ately 3:00-4:00 A. M. Noct u rn al light

On th is clear night, stars were all visible, and there was a very light breeze. At about 2 : 40 A. M ., Officers A and B were patrolling highway U.S. 1 4 to the North end of "76" H ill, a mountain extend ing up out of the canyon at the north end of Deadwood. Officer A stated that as they drove up to the top of the hill, they noticed a large, white, round object in the sky, a little to the north east of the m. They stopped at a parking area on top of the hill and were facing east northeast as they obse rved the object at about a 50 degree elevation angle, apparently between Deadwood and Sturgis. Officer A radioed to R apid City on the car's

Selected U FO Cases

xxiii

state radio and asked if they could see it. Rapid City replied in the neg­ ative. Sturgis then radioed Officer A that they could see the object in the direction of Deadwood, so it apparently was between Deadwood

and Sturgis. The radio operators at Spearfish, Belle Fourche, and Leed all radioed that they could also see the object. Officer A stated that they watched it hang motionless in the sky for 15 to 20 minutes. On two or

three occasions, he shined the police car spotlight on the object; it would black out, then come back on when the spotlight was turned off. Also, during this period, it turned pale green, then red, then white. It was about the size of a silver dollar held out at arm's length. After about

20

minutes, they noticed a

smaller white object' about the size of

a pea held at arm's length, streaking in toward the larger object from the northwest and then stopping. Then another object, the same size, streaked in from the southeast and stopped close to die larger object. Presently the larger object moved to the right, then down, then to the left, then up again, in a square. As it did this, it would send out occa­ sional

blue shafts of light toward the ground. These shafts of light

would last only

2

or

3

seconds, then go out. Again Officer A shined his

spot) ight on the larger object and it would go out, then come back on when the spot was turned off. The radio operators at the other loca­ tions also radioed that they could see this object manuevering, with the other two remaining motionless in a fixed position. After about

30

minutes, the smaller objects shot off at high speed in the directions

from which they had come, taking about

5

seconds. For another

25

minutes or so, the larger object stayed in one spot, shooting out shafts of blue light; then it moved at high speed, stopping, backing up, then moving forward again at high speed, until finally it too disappeared into the southeastern skies. objects.

No noise was detected from any of the

No a irplanes were heard or observed during the sighting.

G ravoi s , F ra n c e , Septembe r 22, 1 967 , abo u t 8:30 P. M . N octu r n al l igh t A Catholic priest writes: "I was the last person in the world to imag­ ine that

I

had seen a UFO because I have been very skeptical. . . . I

was coming south from Versailles, about

3

miles outside of Gravois,

when I noticed this light about the size of a big grapefruit. Because this

xxiv

Sel ected U FO Cases

light was so clear and bright and low lying, I suspected th at it was a re­ flection from some light from the ground reflected in the window, so I turned the window down. The light was still there, so I pulled the car into the side of the road. It appeared not too far away, and I watched it for 15 minutes. There was a constant stream of traffic going toward the lake. It amazed me th at no one else got out of their cars, but kept on going. I was standing there on the side of the road looking up. It was dusky. After a while the object seemed to move off, but it didn't move in a uniform motion. It made kind of a round swing and eventually it seemed to head off toward the northwest and then it swung a little to the north and then it seemed to go toward the northeast. "I was about a mile from another gen tlemen, who was equally skepti­ cal, and I told him what I had seen. H e and his son had seen the same thing. I saw it definitely stationary for about 15 minutes. I timed it. It seemed to me to be going far faster than an airpl ane; it couldn't have been an airplane. It was a bright yellow, and had no definite shape ex­ cept for a while I thought it was kind of flat with a dome shape on top. " H a n ed a Ai r Fo rce B ase, Tokyo, J a pan , Aug u st 5 , 1952, 11 :30 P.M.-12:30 A.M . Noct u rnal l ight a n d rad a r (see a l so Ch apt e r 5 , Appen d i x , C ase 3)

In the clear night sky, several ground observers saw a bright round light low in the northeast, and one incoming pilot after radio query said it looked like a bright star. The ground radar could at first find no tar­ get. At about 11 :50 a fighter plane was vectored in on a bogie, made contact with airborne radar, but the pilot saw nothing visually and lost the radar contact in 90 seconds ; the target's estimated speed was very high. (The Condon Report, p. 1 2 6, identifies the visual sighting as a star.)

Ki rt l a n d A i r Force Base, Alb uq u e rq u e , New M e x i c o , November 4, 1957, 10:45 P. M. (see a l s o C h a pte r 5, Appe n d i x , Case 4)

Two men were on duty alone in the control tower at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico ; the tower is slightly over I 00 feet high. One of the con­ trollers looked up to check cloud conditions and noticed a white light

Selected U FO Cases

I

xxv

traveling east at 200 miles per hour at an altitude of approxi mately 1,5 00 feet. He called the radar station and asked for an identification of the object. The radar operator reported that the object was on a 90degree heading. It angled across the east end of Runway 26 in a southwest­ erly direction and began a sharp descent. One witness gave a radio call in an attempt to contact what was believed to be an unknown a ircraft that had become confused about a land ing pattern. The object was then observed through binoculars and appeared to have the shape of "an au­ tomob ile on end," about 15 -1 8 feet high. One white light was observed at the lower side of the object. The object slowed to fifty m iles per hour and disappeared behind a fence one-half mile from the control tower. It reappeared, moving eastward at an altitude of 200 -300 feet; it then veered in a southeasterly d irection, ascended abruptly at an estimated rate of cli mb of 45 ,000 feet per minute, and disappeared." Although there were scattered clouds with a h igh overcast, visibility was good . Surface winds were variable at ten to thirty knots. Witnesses observed the object for 5 or 6 minutes, approx imately half of that time through binoculars. The radar operator stated that the object was first sighted near the east boundary of Ki rtland AFB. It reversed course and proceeded to the K irtland low-frequency-range station where it began to orbit, then left at high speed and disappeared l 0 miles from the observer. About 20 minutes later an AF C-46 took off to the west. The observer scanned radar to the south and saw the object 4 miles south. It made an abrupt turn to the west and fell into trail formation with the C -46. The object maintained approx i mately one-half-mile separation from the C-46 for approx imately 14 m iles, then hovered for approx imately a minute and a half, and faded from the scope. Lakenheat h , England, A u g u st 1 3,

1 956,

1 1 :00 P.M .-3:30 A.M.

Radar and no cturnal l ight (see al so Chapter 5, Appendix, Case 2)

Two RAF ground-radar stations detected several objects moving at high speed on a clear moonlit night. The first radar tracked one travel­ ing at about 3,000 miles p er hour westward at 4,000 feet altitude; si­ multaneously, tower operators reported a bright light pass ing overhead toward the west and the pilot of a C-4 7 aircraft at 4,000 feet over the

xxvi

Selected U FO Cases

airfield saw the bright light streak westward underneath him. The sec­ ond radar station, alerted by the first, detected a stationary target at about 20,000 feet altitude that suddenly went north at 600 miles per hour. It made several sudden stops and turns. After 30 minutes an RAF fighter was called in and made airborne-radar contacts with the object over Bedford Uust north of Cambridge, England) . Suddenly the object moved around beh ind the fighter plane, both being tracked by ground radar. The fighter pilot could not "sh ake" the object. A second plane was called in but never made contact and all radar contacts were lost. Several other radar targets were tracked in the same area and sev­ eral other small moving lights were seen ; all disappeared at 3 : 30 A. M . , b y wh ich time a few clouds appeared i n the sky. M eth u en , M assach usetts. J anu a ry 20, 1 967, aft e r d a r k. C l o se enco unt e r

Three people were driving northeast through a lon ely area bordered by woods, field, and a few houses. Reaching the top of the hill they sud­ denly came upon a straight string of bright glowing red lights moving northeast along the roadside to the north . They appeared to be at an al­ titude of 500-600 feet and just off the road at a point estimated to be about 400-500 feet away from them. Witnesses immediately slowed the car and proceeded toward the lights. When almost broadside to the l ights which now seemed to be hovering, the object to which they were apparently attached swung around in a smooth sideways turn reveal ing a new light configuration and color. Four distinct lights formed a per­ fect trapezoid: two red lights formed the top and two white lights formed the base. One witness was certain she saw a dimmer white light just above the two red lights. All were impressed by the large size of the individual l ights and the apparent size of the object that they must have been attached to. The red lights were compared to the color and brightness of a hot electric stove burner. A reflecting metal was seen beh ind the lights. The center of the trapezo id seemed to be dark and nonreflecting. The driver pulled over to the side of the road d irectly broadside to the object wh ich seemed to be lower and only 1 00-300 feet away. The witnesses decided it would be best to stay in the car, which was idling with lights and radio on. Then abruptly the engine,

Sel ected U FO Cases

I

xxv i i

lights, and radio failed completely except fo r the generator light, wh ich

just barely lit up and was pulsating off and on. The driver immediately tried to start the car but the engine would only " moan" and would not start. Th ink ing that the lights and radio might be overloading the bat­ tery, the driver tried to start the car again after switching them off but was unsuccessful. The driver had opened the side window. The others were afraid to put down the larger windows. No noise was heard. Then the object began mov ing slowly and then shot away at great speed in a southwesterly direction. The dr iver was then able to start the car and the lights worked perfectly as did the radio later when they turned it on.

A s m all town in M i n nesot a . June 1 958, 6:30 P . M . D ayl ight disk

"My wife and I had just fi nished supper. 1 went out and started the garden hose. The sun had dropped below the horizon but the western sky was quite golden after the rain shower. There was a large thunder­ head cloud in the southwest sky. I heard a sort of whining noise and I thought that one of my neighbors about a block away m ight be running a saw. " The sound became stronger and a steady wh ine, and seemed to be coming from the southwestern part of the sky, not like what I had heard of jets. I tu rned around and looked up toward the thunderhead from where th e sound now seemed to be coming. As I looked I saw this thing come out from behind the thunderhead. My wife just saw the last part of it as it went back beh ind the thunderhead. "I remarked to her that this was someth ing new in flying machines­ probably some new government test. "There w as no mention of anyth i ng in our local paper, but later I real­ ized that in town with trees in the streets, the object probably had not been visible. I made a pencil sketch of it; it was near enough so that I got a good view in several pos itions. It sort of spiraled and gl ided and was silvery with what appeared to be portholes showing dark as interi­ ors would. I would judge it to be about 150 feet in diameter. I don't know what height thunderheads usually are but the distance could be judged from that. "

xxviii

Sel ected U FO Cases

Missou ri. March 6, 1966, 11 :00 A.M. Clo se en co u nter

The sky was clear and the sun was behind the observer, who was driving with her dog, a St. Bernard, sleeping in the back seat. The dog started acting very strangely, barking and seemingly quite upset. The dog jumped up on the front seat w ith h is h air standing up on the back of his neck. Suddenly he acted as though someone had wh ipped him and tried to get down under the seat. He was wh impering and very scared. The observer then saw a beam of light on the road ahead of the car. The light beam extended about one foot over each side of the road, which has a twenty-four-foot pavement, and the beam was blue-white i n color and bright enough so that the observer could see what appeared to be dust particles in the beam. As the observer looked th rough the beam the road beyond seemed distorted as though by heat waves. As the car entered the beam it slowed from 50 miles per hour to about l 0 miles per hour. As the car began to slow, the observer looked out and up through the windshield and saw a disk-shaped object hovering over the road. She esti mated it to be some 1,000 feet high ; it appeared larger than a dime held at arm's length, to be metal w i th a raised or domed area at the top. The witness could see no detail, lights on the object, or seams. The light beam narrowed to .� small area in the lower center of the disk. The object appeared to be stable; it did not wobble. The sur­ face seemed to be very smooth. The light beam was very br ight and th e witness had to close her eyes partially to look at the object. She stated that her eyes bothered her for 3 days following the sighting. When the car slowed to about 1 0 miles per hour, she pushed the accelerator to the floor, but the car would not respond. After passing through the beam the automob ile ran smoothly again. She then drove stra ight home and did not look again at the object. The total du ration of the sighting w as about l 0 seconds. Mont g o m e ry, Alabama. J u ly 24, 1948, 2:45 A. M. Noct u r nal lig h t

Pilot C. S. Ch iles and co-pilot J . B . Whitted in the cockpit of an Eastern Airl ines DC-3 at 5,000 feet altitude en route from Houston to

S elected UFO Cases

I

xxix

Boston saw a dull-red object approaching on a collision course . During the next l 0 seconds, it veered slightly to the right, passed the plane on the right° at h igh speed, then seemed to pull up, and disappeared in the clouds overhead. One passenger on the right side of the plane glimpsed the bright light as it flashed by. There was no disturbance of the DC-3. The pilots described the object as cigar-shaped, about l 00 feet long, w ith two rows of l ighted windows, a dark blue glow underneath, and a red-orange jet flame about 50 feet long beh ind it. They esti mated the closest approach to be less than a mile. (Both Hynek and Menzel iden­ tify th is as a meteor much farther away.) N ewton, Illi n o is. Octo ber 10, 1 966, 5:20 P. M. D ayl ight disk

A woman and five chi ldren witnessed the slow passage of a metallic object past their farm home. Observing conditions were excellent, w ith clear, dry weather. The object was first seen by the children, ages four through nine years. The mother responded to the children's call and joined them in the yard, walking parallel with the object's motion. The object moved slowly and uniformly in a westerly direction, at walking speed, approximately 50 feet above the ground. The object disappeared by abruptly turn ing nose up and moving upward extremely rapidly, dis­ appearing from s ight in one or two seconds. An analysis of sighting and landmark pos itions and angular clues suggests a prolate spheroid ap­ prox imately 20 feet long and 8 feet in diameter. The surface was metal­ lic, like aluminu m ; the witness was near enough to ovserve longitudinal seams. The object had a small dorsal fin at the rear and a rectangular black aperture near the front. A brown ish gold design was observed on the lower rear portion. The whole object was at all ti mes surrounded by a bluish haze about 5 feet thick. The haze had a noticeable optical th ickness. It also contained luminous bubbles or sparks. No sound was heard from the object except for an unusual vibrating noise perceived for a few seconds when the object was nearest. No electr ical effects were noted by the observers. The ch ildren were asked to sketch the object the even ing of the sight­ ing. I ndividual judgments of color obta ined by means of a Nickerson color fan produced consistent results.

xxx

Selected UFO Cases

Seventy minutes after th is observation, under dark sky conditions, an elliptical blue light of the same color and axial ratio was seen moving in the same general direction, at low elevation angle, by a witness seven miles from the location of the first sighting. These two sightings were the first ever reported from this area. Salt Lak e C ity, Utah . Octo ber 2 , 1 96 1 , 1 2 : 05 P . M . Daylight d i sk

A civil ian pilot, taking off from the Utah Central A i rport, noticed a bright silvery disk ahead of his pl ane. A few m inutes later he saw that the object was pencil-shaped and still in the same position. He radioed the control tower, where the operator saw the same object directly under the sun apparently hovering over Provo, 40 miles to the south. The pilot flew toward the object, wh ich seemed to be at about 7 ,000 feet alti­ tude and rocking gently. When he got about 5 miles from it, the object suddenly shot up and retreated rapidly southward soundlessly and with no vapor trail. After a few seconds, wh ile it diminished in size, the ob­ ject vanished at an estimated speed of several thousand miles per hour. Ground observers at the airport saw the object, but others at Provo, alerted by rad io, did not. The sky was slightly hazy ( Menzel identifies the "object" as a sundog produced by scattering of sunlight i n cirrus clouds) . So uth-central U . S . , J uly 1 7 , 1 957, early mor n i ng. Radar (see also C hapter 5, Appen d i x, Case 1 )

A U .S. Air Force B-47, especially equipped with electronic counter­ measures equipment and carrying a crew of six, returned from a test mission over the Gulf of Mexico and was headed north flying at about 30,000 feet. The weather was clear and all crew members were moni­ toring the ir equipment. One special radar, at 2,800 -megacycle fre­ quency, detected a strong target overtaking the B-47, and shortly the pilot and co-pilot saw a bright white light moving ahead of them . Th is object veered across the B-47 course toward the east at a speed much higher than any aircraft. It seemed to be "as large as a barn" and was picked up by the 2, 800-megacycle radar on the right side of the B-47 . The object was flying at the same speed even though the p ilot changed

Sel ected U FO Cases

I

xxx i

the air speed of the B-47 . Ground-based radar confirmed the presence of the object about 1 0 miles east of the B- 47 . The object then moved to a position ahead of the B-47 and was seen as a large red glow. It stopped and, as the B-47 flew over, disappeared. At this time the radar target also disappeared. As the B -4 7 circled to reapproach the last posi­ tion, the object reappeared, stationary on both radars, at 1 5 ,000 feet alti­ tude. As the B -47 approached, it disappeared again at a range of 5 miles. W h i te Sa n d s M i ss i le R a n ge , New Me x i co , M arch 2, 1967, 1 2 :25-1 1 :32 P . M . R ad ar

A driver on H ighway 70 near the Apache Summit at 9,000 feet elevation reported silvery specks passing overhead from north to south. Two ground radars at Holloman AFB searched the regi o n near Apache Summ it, found nothing moving from north to south but got intermittent targets. Lighter ai rcraft searched the area but found no visual or radar targets. (The ground-radar targets are explained i n the Condon Report, p. 1 5 1 , as ground targets and a possible drifting balloon.)

PART

I

BAC KGROUN D

1 Education and the U FO Phenomenon TH O R NTON PAG E

At present it is fair to say that the attitude toward UFO's is highly polarized between the conservative views of a small group of senior physical scientists and the vastly more speculative views of a large part of the American public. This book is directed toward a middle group who want to learn more of the facts about the UFO problem, to hear rational discussion of alternative explanations of peculiar sightings, and to go over some of the sociological interpretations of the very wide­ spread UFO phenomenon. (For instance, I hope the sociologists take note of " Page's Law, " that the wave of UFO concern moves eastward around the world, completing one full circuit in about seventeen years.) We are convinced that logical discussion of this widely publicized topic will serve a beneficial educational purpose, both among scientists and the general public. Educat i o n a l Aspe cts

The aim of the symposium, and hence of this book, is to bri ng the varied facts on UFO's to the attention of scientists and to show enthusi­ asts the impl ications of the very much better organized facts in the physical, biological, and social sciences. Two specific educational as­ pects are important: the possible harm done to science education by pseudoscientific UFO reports, magazines, and books, and the use of stu­ dent i,iterest in UFO's to benefit the teaching of science. It is appropriate to begin with a reference to the Scientific Study of 3

4

Backg round

Unidentified Flying Objects ( New York : Bantam Books, 1969) prepared by E. U. Condon and his thirty-six-member staff at th e University of Colorado during 1967 and 1 96 8 . The symposium was delayed for a year so that the full content of the Condon Report could be read and di­ gested after its publication in J anuary 1969. The paperback edition contains almost 1 ,000 pages, including case studies, an alyses along the lines of several different scientific disciplines, and a twen ty-year histori­ cal summary. My own experience goes back to the panel convened by H. P. Robertson in 1 953, which issued a much shorter report and clas­ sified it "secret." Another panel, wh ich met under the chairmanship of Brian O' Brien in 1 966 and included Carl Sagan , made the recommen­ dation wh ich led to the Condon study ; the O' Brien report also was not widely read. The Un ited States Air Force, charged with the responsibility for in­ vestigating UFO's, has come to realize that public education is needed to alleviate the "UFO problem." About 90 per cent of the 13,000 re­ ports received by USAF Project Bluebook could have been recogn ized as normal physical phenomena by persons who had studied elementary astronomy in high school or college. Of course, the press and other mass media have influenced public reaction (see Chapter 13) , and there is a natural tendency of the average layman to be intrigued by mysteri­ ous or unexpected appearances (see Chapter 1 1 ) . As we all know, pub­ lic demand helped to build up a large body of published literature, some of it fallacious (or highly speculative) and of special appeal to readers uneducated in science, particularly youngsters of high-school age. It would be ridiculous to claim that on e two-day symposium or one modest book could come up with the "correct" answer to the UFO question. The Condon Report, which involved more than fifty man­ years of study, reached a conclusion (disputed by many) that further study is not worthwhile. As a result, the Air Force recently discontin­ ued the Project Bluebook files, wh ich will be moved from Wright- Pat­ terson AFB to the USAF Arch ives at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Al­ abama (where access will be controlled by the Office of Information, Department of the Air Force, Washington). Although the Bluebook files were far from perfect, their termination has

E d u cati o n and th e UFO Ph enomeno n

I

5

d isappointed many people, including some of the scientists participating in th is symposium.As Condon h imself writes ( in the Condon Report, Section I, p. 2) : Scientists are no respecters of authority. Our conclusion ••that further U FO studies are not worthwhile" will not be uncritically accepted by them. Nor should it be, nor do we wish it to be. For scientists, it is our hope that the detailed analytical presentation of what we were able to do, and of what we were unable to do, will assist them in deciding whether or not they agree with our conclusions. Th e H a rm ful Effect of U FO Literature

Condon devoted the last half-page of his "Conclusions and Recom­ mendations" to the " miseducation in our schools wh ich arises from the fact that many ch ildren are being . . . encouraged to devote their sci­ ence study time to the reading of UFO books and magazine articles. " There can be no doubt th at some of the books and articles on UFO's are unsuitable and m isleading, just as popular books on science fiction, astrology, drugs, and sex (equally available) may conceivably be harm­ ful to young readers. A brief review of Lynn Catoe's UFO bibliography 1 shows 7 1 books, 28 pamphlets, and 7 3 magazine articles in English that h ave been avail­ able and widely read in the United States since 1 947 (the pamphlets and articles mostly since 1 96 1 ). I have classified these in eight cate­ gories ( Table 1 - 1 ), ranging from "conservative science" and the "Air Force position" through descriptive "historical reports" to speculative treatments of "extraterrestrial visitors, " and "contacts" with them. (Since it is unlikely that old magazine articles have much influence today, the pamphlets and articles before 1 96 1 have been omitted from the table.) The statistics in Table 1 - 1 are interesting in themselves: the books show a much wider range in "speculativeness" than the pamphlets and magazine articles. About 1 0 per cent of the books are extremely conser­ vative, and 20 per cent h ighly speculative, whereas the pamphlets and magazine articles are mostly of the liberal scientific or historical type, em inently suitable for student reading. If books like Adamski's Inside the Space Ships ( New York : Abelard-Schuman, 1 95 5 ) are discounted as

Backg ro u nd

6

Table 1 - 1 . G eneral p ub l i cat ions o n U F O ' s i n E n g l is h , 1 948-1 969

General b oo ks Category C o ns e rv at i ve s c i e n ce USA F position Li bera l s c i e n ce Psychol ogy H istorical repo rt Ext rate rrestrial specu l atio n Speculation o n secrecy Sto ries of co ntacts Totals ( 1 00% )

Pam p h l ets

M ag az i ne art i cles

1 961 -69

1 961 -69 .

1 948-59

1 960-69

No.

No.

o/o

No.

O/o

No.

6 6 11 4 15

4 3 6 2 15

6 4 8 3 21

1 0 8 1 13

o/o

Total

N o.

o/o

4

1 1

29 4 46

35 3 17

1 1 48 4 23 20

o/o

1 0 1 0 8

33

3 3 5 2 7

7

29

13

28

20

28

2

7

15

2 5

8 21

5 9

11 19

7 14

10 20

0 3

11

0 1

24

4 4

47

71

28

73

M agaz i nes in E ng l ish devoted e n t i re ly to U FO ' s a re A PRO B ulletin (fo r­ me rly Newsletter) , U.S. b imonthly started in 1 952 ; B U FO RA J o u r n al , B ri tish q uarterly started i n 1 965 ; Fate, U . S . month ly started i n 1 948 ; Flying Saucer Re­ view, U.S. b i m o nthly started in 1 954 ; Flying Saucers, U.S. monthly started i n 1 957 ; Saucer News, British q uarterly started i n 1 953; UFO Investiga tor, U .S. monthly started i n 1 958. A rt i cl e s a l so appeared in America, Argosy Bluebook, G iant Comic Book, Ma­ •

cleans, New Republic, Life, Look, Newsweek, New Yorker, Playboy, Saga, Spectator, Nation, Saturday Evening Post, Sa turday Review, Time, True, U.S. News and World Report; and ( l ess ava i l able) i n Aero Digest, Airline Pilot, A ir­ man, Bioscience, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of the Optical So­ ciety of America, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, L ibrary Journal, Physics Bulletin, Physics Today, Popular Mechanics, Pop ular Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Science, Science Diges t, Science and Mechanics, Yale Sci­ entific Magazine .

science fiction, even the speculative books can be used by an experi­ enced science teacher as "interest rousers." As any teacher knows, stu­ dent interest in a topic-even if it derives from misconceptions-is bet­ ter than no interest at all. U s i ng U FO ' s in t h e Teac h i ng of Sc i e n ce

The reader may be intrigued by how I tested this technique at Wesleyan University in an undergraduate elective course (" Science I 0 I "), designed to interest non-science majors who would otherwise have had no science courses whatsoever. Not all my colleagues on the

Educatio n and th e U FO Phenomeno n

7

faculty were enthusiastic over my offering "Flying Saucers" in the fall semester, 1 967, even when it was oversubscribed and offered again in the spring of 1 968 by student demand. Along with many other science teachers, I had become frustrated with the dimi nishing undergraduate interest in physical science (Table 1 -2) at a time when space exploration, electronic computers, and nuTable 1 -2. U nd e rg rad u ate maj o rs at Wes l eyan ( i n per cent g raduat i ng in eac h fi el d)

Year

Physical scie nces

Biolog ical sc iences

Social scie nces

H u manities and the arts

1 960 1 961 1 962 1 963 1 964 1 965 1 966 1 967 1 968 1 969

16 15 13 13 12 11 10 9 8 7

10 8 11 11 16 10 6 7 6 4

50 55 50 51 48 44 59 53 58 59

24 22 26 25 24 35 25 31 28 30

clear physics seem to me to offer more and more exciting work. The lack of interest (even hostility) has been traced to poor teaching of mathematics and physics in grade schools and high schools, but this scarcely helps to solve the problem of what we should do about a gener­ ation of college students who want noth ing to do with physical science at a time when more young physicists, engineers, and astronomers are needed. Briefly, the one-semester course consisted of two lectures and a dis­ cussion session each week, with a two-week reading (and writing) pe­ riod near :the end. We started with a review of UFO reports, then spent five weeks on elementary astronomy-because planets, bright stars, and meteors are so often reported as UFO's. The importance of celesti al co­ ord inates and time was stressed for proper reporting of U FO's, and stu­ dents were interested (or villai nous) enough to phone me late in the evening at home to report celestial objects that looked like UFO's. One of my most active evenings was in November 1 967, when there was a

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bright "moondog" (r ing around the moon) reported to me by every one of the fifty students in the class. At th is point we sh ifted to atmospheric physics, and discussed ball lightning, refraction, and aurorae for a week or two. Then we returned to astronomy for discuss ion of the extraterrestrial hypothes is. The stu­ dents learned that conditions on other planets of the solar system are perhaps not conducive to intelligent life, and discussed theories of the origin of the solar system and the origin of l ife (a very popular topic) . They learned how stellar distances are measured by parallax, discussed the probability of l ife on planets of other stars, and recogn ized the diffi­ cult problems of interstellar travel (long distance, and impact with inter­ stellar material at high speed 2) . Each student spent the two-week reading period writing a term paper on a topic selected from the follow ing list: The Celest i al S p here Coord i n ates in the Sky The Con stel lations The Ptolemaic Syste m D i st a n ces to Planets, Stars, and G a l a x i es The Earth's Atmos p he re A u ro rae and Lu m i nous Clouds M e teors and t he i r Tra i l s T h e I onos p he re, R a d i o , and Radar Effects of the Sol a r Wind Celest i a l M echanics H istory o f P l a ne tary M otions Evidence for M otions of the Earth Co m p lete Descri pt i o n of a n Orb i t Newton

vs

Einste i n

Travel between Stars S p ace Probes

H istory s i nce 1 93 0 Launch a n d G u ida nce i n to Orbit Design of a M odern S pace P robe

Orbits and Ti mes

for

I nte r p l a netary Fl i ght

P u r pose of N A S A P rograms

E d u cat io n and th e UFO Ph e nomenon

g

M oon and Planets Surfaces of the M oon and M ars Theories of Crater Formation Living Cond itions on M oon and Planets Solar System Differences between Planets, Comets, and Meteoroids Solar Flares and the Solar Wind Origin of the Solar System Evidence for Life on Other Worlds Flying Saucers History Survey of Significant Reports Sociological I mplications Physical Peculiarities Reliable Identifications

When the papers were turned in, each was passed to a different student assigned the job of writing a critique. In all but a few cases, these cri­ tiques revealed a good grasp of the astronomy and physics involved. The three best papers were published in pamphlet form, and sold well (at 25 cents) in the college bookstore. These three authors appeared on a half-hour television show to explain their views on UFO's, and thus gained firsthand experience of the publicity aspects of th is topic. Earl ier in the semester, two outside speakers widely recognized for their UFO studi es (J . Allen Hynek and Donald H . M enzel) had lectured to the class, and told a little about the publicity difficulties. I am convinced that the students learned a good deal of astronomy, physics, and biology in the " Flying Saucer" course, although I admit that such a course is not suitable as a standard part of the curriculum and that possibly it might lose its appeal after the novelty wore off. For "lab work," the students learned constellations, spotted an earth-orbit­ ing spacecraft, and looked at bright planets through a small telescope. Several searched for UFO evidence on films taken by one of the sixty­ four cameras of the Prairie Network,3 after a session in wh ich we de­ cided that the astronom ical telescopes in use have almost no chance of photographing a UFO passing through the telescope field. 4 On the other hand, the Pra irie Network has about 65 per cent coverage of the sky for

1O

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bright objects over 440,000 square miles in the M idwest-about 0.22 per cent of the earth's surface. A similar Canadian network and the ear­ lier Czech network raise this area coverage to about 0.5 per cent. The network results (negative for UFO's, positive for meteors) are discussed later in the book. Con clu s i o n s

The general advancement of science depends heavily on public edu­ cation in science. Most of the significant research today depends on public support (university, foundation, or government financing) . It is therefore obvious that students (and older citizens) must be given enough education in science to recognize worthwhile scientific effort. For a number of reasons, many students as well as the general publ ic are interested in UFO's. Teachers should capitalize on this interest in teaching courses of broad appeal ; scientists in general should take ad­ vantage of public interest in UFO's to correct public misconceptions about science.

N OT E S

1 . Lynn E. Catoe, UFO's and Related Subjects: A n A nnotated Bibliogra­ phy, Library of Congress, AFOSR 68- 1 656 (Washi ngton, D.C.: U .S. Gov­ ernment Printing Office, 1 969). 2 . Freeman Dyson, " Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, Oct. 1 968. 3 . R. E. McCrosky and H . Boeschenstein, The Prairie Meteorite Net­ work , Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Special Report N o. 1 73 (Cambridge, M ass. : 1 965). 4. Thornton Page, " Photographic Sky Coverage for the Detection of UFO's," Science 1 60 ( 1 968): 1 25 8 .

2 Historical Perspect ives : Photos of U FO's W I L L I A M K. HARTMA N N

Although I was involved i n the University of Colorado UFO project and was a coauthor of the Colorado Report, 1 I can present only my own experience, wh ich has shown that in the UFO business one can trust noth ing secondhand. Also, in my experience, the UFO evidence is very poor. In studying photographic cases I went to a number of the UFO enthusiasts and asked for their lists of the best cases. From these I chose the strongest U FO cases to investigate, but even these all fell apart upon close examination. They included such photo-classics as Santa Ana, Vandenberg AFB (Air Force tracking films), Tremonton, Beaver County, and the Fort Belvoir ring (cases 49 to 53 in the Condon Report) . Later I rev iewed the U FO 1 iterature and found that what are re­ garded by some as the "classic" cases have been adequately explained by other investigators. Often, what one enthusiast quotes as evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence ( ETI) or some other extraordinary phenom­ enon, another ETI enthusiast concedes as an explained case ! Thus there is no agreement on what the evidence is. The current status of some fa­ mous cases that have been heralded as strong evidence of extraordinary phenomena is listed in Table 2- 1 . A number of the explanations are conceded by E. J . Ruppelt and by D. R. Saunders and R. R. Harkins, who are w idely regarded as "enthusiasts. " The table illustrates the difficulty with the so-called residuum of clas­ sic, unexplained cases: the "residual cases" keep changing. As old cases 11

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are explained, new cases are added, keepi ng the residuum of unex­ plained cases more or less constant. One prom inent student of UFO's who has called for another scientific investigation, included the Santa Ana, Fort Belvoir, and McMinnville cases as unexplained i n 1 966- 1 969 ; yet he l ater agreed with the Colorado Project's conclusions that the Santa Ana case was internally i nconsistent and the Fort Belvoir case is explained. The Colorado Proj ect found McM innville was incon­ clusive, and in late 1 969 it was shown to be internally inconsistent by R. Shaeffer (private communication) . So I must approach UFO's with what I hope is healthy skepticism. To discuss UFO's in a scientific way we must define terms. For "UFO" I accept the definition of the Colorado Report: essentially it as an unidentified object or apparition cons idered strange by the observer. This is popular usage, but it leaves a need for other terms to make the discussion clear. A UFO can become an identified flying object after in­ vestigation. If not, it may be considered an extraordinary flying object, that is, something beyond the bounds of recognized natural phenomena. Even more startling, it might be called an alien flying object meaning a vehicle constructed by alien intelligence. I therefore speak of an alpha­ betic spectrum: UFO, I FO, EFO, AFO. Table 2- 1 . Th e fate of som e of th e " b est" U FO repo rts Date

Case name

A l l eg ed eve nts

Cu rrent stat u s

1 948 J an. 7

G o dm a n A FB, Ky.

P i l ot M antel l ch ased U FO, got too close, and was " sh ot dow n . " P l a n e c rash ed and M antel l w as kil l ed .

U FO was a s kyhook bal l oon, l ittl e k now n at t h at t im e. M antel l f l ew t o o h ig h . (M B , SH)

1 948 J u ly 24

and Ch i l es P i l ots E aste rn A irl i nes Wh itted reported that (ove r G eorg i a) a fiery c i g ar-s h aped object w ith w i ndows passed close to a i rl i ne r.

Desc ript ion exactly m atches t h at g ive n by w it n esses to re-e nt ry of Zo n d I V in 1 968 .

P i l ot Gorman h as a dog fig ht w ith a l ig hted U F O a t nig ht.

Navy p i l ots rep ro d u ced such an eve nt w it h a l ig hted bal­ loon. R , MB identify the ob­ ject as a bal l oon, co nfused w ith J u p it er.

1 948 Oct. 1

Fargo, N .D .

( C R)

H i stori cal Pe rsp ect ives

13

iable 2- 1 . Co nt i n u ed D at e

Case name

A l l eg ed events

C u rrent st at u s

1 950 M ar. 1 7

Farm i n g to n , N.M.

H u n d reds of U F O ' s w itnessed by m a ny citizens.

I d entifi e d a s f rag m ents o f ex p l od ed skyhook bal loon by both R and M B.

1 95 0 M ay 1 1

M c M i n nv i l l e, O re.

Farm e r and w ife photog raph d i s k.

Fab ricat io n not ruled out i n C R . Stro n g i nternal i n con­ s iste ncies recent ly show n . (S)

1 952 J u ly 2

Tremo nton, Utah

Navy photog rap h e r g ets tel ephoto m ovies of U FO ' s.

I d e n t ified as b i rd s ; sim i l a r behavi o r o f b i rds observed by autho r near Tremo nto n i n 1 968. (CR)

1 957 Sept.

U b at u b a, B raz i l

Co mposition of fragm e nts of al l eg e d ex­ p l o d i ng saucer ru l e o u t t e r rest rial o rig i n .

Composit ion cou l d h ave b ee n p ro d u ced co m m e r­ c i al ly, as estab l ish ed by Dow sam ples ava i l ab l e at t h e t i m e. ( C R)

1 957 Sept.

Fo rt Belvo ir, Va.

"A m az i ng ri ng-shaped U FO" p h otog raph ed by A rmy p r ivate .

Pro d u ct of demo nst rat i o n exp losio n : detached vo rtex r i n g . Wel l-show n exam p l e s f i l m ed i n Sov i et p rod u ct io n o f "War a n d Peace." ( C R)

1 963 Dec. 5

V a n d e n b e rg A FB, Cal i f.

Roc ket t rac k i ng came ras photog raph U FO.

U FO ( C R)

1 965 Aug. 3

Santa A n a, Cal if.

Traffi c i nvest i g at o r photog raphs d i sk.

M any i nternal c i es. (CR)

So u rces for cu rre n t status : M B : D. H. M e nzel a n d L. G . Boyd, C ity : D o u b l eday , 1 963) . S H : D. R. S a u n d e rs a n d

R.

show n

to

be

Ve n u s .

i n co n s isten-

The World of Flying Saucers ( G ard e n

R. H aw k i ns ,

UFO's? Yes! ( New York: S i g net

Boo ks , 1 968) . C R : E. U. C o n d o n , Scientific S tudy of Unidentified Flying Obj ec ts ( N ew York: Bantam Books, 1 969) (the C o l o rado Repo rt) . R : E. J . R u ppelt, Rep ort on th e Unidentified Flying Obj ec ts ( New York: Ace Books , 1 956) . S: R. Sch aeffer, p rivate com m u n i cati o n , 1 969.

This terminology makes it easier to answer questions such as: " Have there really been any UFO's?" The answer of course is yes. There have been thousands and thousands of UFO's. Many people have reported things they could not understand. What people usually mean to ask is "Were there any EFO's?" We

14

Bac kg ro u nd

have to adm it, if we are realistic, that there certainly are a few cases that have remained puzzling after analysis. Yet this, too, is to be ex­ pected. The tremendous variety of earthly and human phenomena guar­ antees unexplained reports. The crux of the argument, a point that UFO enthusiasts tend to over­ look, is the variety of ordinary circumstances that can produce apparently extraordinary phenomena. Some of them are listed in the Colorado Report: sundogs, sub-suns, balloons, lenticular clouds, in­ dustrial detergents, satellite re-entries, meteor radar echoes, rad ar an­ gels, and so on. No ordinary observer is expected to be fam iliar with them all, and no UFO investigator can anticipate all of them and all their combinations. Therefore we must expect UFO reports whether there are extraordi­ nary flying objects or not; unexplained observations are not evidence for EFO'S. My colleague, the late James McDonald, has asked : " If UFO's really exist, why don't pilots see them? Why don't astronomers see them?" He then showed that pilots and astronomers had reported UFO's. But this seems to imply that UFO's are a single class of objects. The UFO's reported by various pilots, astronomers, and city dwellers may all be results of different individual circumstances. McDonald states: "One can be fooled, of course; but it would be rash indeed to suggest that the thousands of UFO cases now on record are simply a testimony to confabulation." This is the "where-there's-smoke-there's­ fire" theory. Similarly, The UFO Evidence, a comprehensive study pub­ lished in 1 964 by NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Ae­ rial Phenomena) , lists tabulations of pilot-witness, scientist-witness, radar, photographic, and other kinds of cases, and asserts that there must be something to such an abundance of cases. But, of course, the mere listing of unanswered puzzles is not equivalent to providing unan­ swerable argu ments. Is it conceivable that all of the UFO reports can be due to mistakes and hoaxes? I think that it is conceivable, and not at all a rash sugges­ tion. We know the "signal-to-noise ratio" in UFO studies is low, and there may be no signal at all. A few examples will illustrate how mistakes and hoaxes can produce UFO reports, or EFO reports, and in particular that secondhand ac-

H isto rical Perspect ives

15

counts cannot be trusted. A friend brought me what appeared to be two rather crude fake UFO photos and asked what I thought of them. When I told him, he said, "They couldn't possibly be fake because the fellow who took them is a friend who is a sociology professor with outstanding credentials as a witness. " A few days later my friend returned sheep­ ishly to tell me that the sociologist showed fake pictures to his friends because he was interested in study ing their reactions. As another example, during the Colorado Project we heard many sto­ ries of UFO films hidden away on military bases. The only documented case was cited in a text on astrodynamics. 2 A peculiar image had been photographed passing a rocket during a launch at Vandenberg AFB. Triangulation indicated that the object was distant. We requested the films and classified tracking data through Air Force ch�nnels, received them at once, and found that the telephoto trackers had recorded the planet Venus. These photos had stimulated many secondhand rumors that the Air Force had "proof of flying saucers. " In 1 968, during the hearing on UFO's, of the House Committee on Science and Astronau­ tics, 3 m isleading testimony w as given that the Colo rado Project had been unsuccessful in obtaining or explaining the Vandenberg films. This is an example of how the Congress, the scientist, and the concerned citi­ zen gets incorrect information on UFO's. Lack of scientific communica­ tion has allowed a distorted UFO mythology to develop. Such examples do not prove that the excitement over UFO's is base­ less. If we assert that there are no extraordinary objects, we must know exactly how the UFO affair developed. I will review UFO history in the next pages. First, we divide the UFO phenomenon into two parts: the sociological UFO phenomenon and the (hypothetical) physical UFO phenomenon, i.e., the possibility of extraordinary physical objects. The following is a hypothetical reconstruction of how the sociological UFO phenomenon could have developed without any EFO's. Kenneth Arnold reported his "flying saucers" in June 1 947, a post­ war era when people were conscious of the possib ility of interplanetary travel and the technological marvels that lay ahead. Arnold's sighting was an honest misinterpretation of some ordinary phenomenon, possibly a group of aircraft. At that time, the American publ ic was "primed" to seize upon fly ing saucers with enthusiasm and excitement. The Maury

16

J

Backg ro u nd

Island hoax of J uly 1 947, where alleged fragments of a UFO were first reported, and other hoaxes prove that some citizens were sufficiently motivated to go to great lengths to claim sightings of the strange new objects. That a society shold be "primed" is no novel concept. The anthropol­ ogist A. L. Kroeber pointed out in 1 9 1 7 that the acceptance of an idea depends as much on the state of society as on the idea itself. Kroeber po ints to Mendel's discovery of the principles of hered ity in 1 865 . Men­ del's work was ignored at the time, but in the year 1 900, when Dar­ win's word had taken hold and the question of hereditary mechanisms was on everyone's mind, three students independently red iscovered Mendel's conclusions with experiments of their own. In the same way, the sociological reaction to Arnold's report in 1 947 can be explained by the fact that postwar society was primed for the ac­ ceptance of al ien spacesh ips. Hence the headlong rush to report saucers, someti mes through hoaxes. The spectacular hoaxes acted as a positive feedback, keeping the subject alive and guaranteeing that newspapers would devote space to legitimate reports called in by honest citizens who spotted th ings they could not identify. This surge of publicity caused genuine concern among military �nd other responsible officials. During a military investigation, Arnold came away with the mistaken impression that the military already knew what the objects were and had good photographs of them. By mid-summer of 1 94 7, he publicized this erroneous impression in magazine articles wh ich gained wide attention. This fostered the "government conspiracy" myth. The fact that two military officers were killed in an airplane crash wh ile investigating the Maury Island incident kindled further rumors. Military concern escalated in 1 948- 1 949 because of three spectacular sightings and the Green Fireball episode, publicized in Life magazine. These incidents were billed in the press as ( 1 ) a successful attack by a UFO on an aircraft, (2) a flam ing cigar-shaped object that buzzed an airliner, (3) a dogfight between an aircraft and a UFO, and (4) a rash of unprecedented bol ides. Much later they were accounted for as ( I ) the airplane's encounter with a skyhook balloon, (2) a probable fireball sight­ ing, match ing contemporary descriptions of the Soviet Zond IV space­ craft re-entry, (3) a probable dogfight with a weather balloon, matching

H isto rical Pe rspect ives

17

a sim ilar incident del iberately staged by N avy pilots, and (4) a series of meteoric objects, possibly of lunar origin. The explanations came late and unheralded , as explanations often do. (See Table 2 - 1 .) Withi n the Air Force investigating team, a group of officers now began to believe the UFO's were extraterrestrial. Since this was never accepted by their superiors, rumors were generated in the early l 950's that the Air Force was suppressing the "known fact" that saucers were interplanetary vehicles. In 1 95 2, the famous Tremonton, Utah, motion pictures of UFO's were made by a N avy officer, and submitted to the m il itary. Air Force and Navy analysts who already were prepared to beli eve in alien space sh ips concluded that the films showed self-lumi­ nous objects, wh ich, if ten miles away, were moving faster than l ,000 m iles per hour. The Robertson comm ittee, a group of s� ientists called to adv ise the Air Force, exam ined many cases in the Bluebook files, in­ cluding Tremonton films, and discovered that the assumption of self-lu­ mi nous objects was unwarranted, that the films probably showed birds and were not good evidence of EFO's or AFO's. After reviewing this and other cases, the Robertson committee concluded UFO's posed no threat to the n ation. Unfortunately, the Air Force decided that the UFO affair should be hushed up so as not to clog security networks with s ightings generated by an excited public. Though this move to secrecy reflected the uneasi­ ness of the times, it was a crucial error because it encouraged, instead of discouraging, ru mor. By comparing the Tremonton films, the Air Force and Navy reports, and N ICAP documents, we can now see how false, but justifiable, rumors spread through UFO circles that the Air Force had "evidence" of EFO's. Certain prominent UFO advocates on the fringes of the mil itary picked up these rumors and alleged that the Air Force had films of mult ithousand-m ile-per-hour "machines" of un­ known origin. None of the studies of the Tremonton films were released at the time. In 1 968, I observed birds of similar appearance near Tre­ monton, and the Colorado Project concluded that the Tremonton films showed birds. If, instead of a policy of secrecy, the Air Force had released the UFO data and encouraged all scientists to come and look at its files in 1 952, it is probable that the UFO mystery would have been clarified

18

Bac kg ro u nd

after a few months of scientific and public excitement and, indeed, healthy curiosity. A 1 95 1 movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still, depicted a flying sau­ cer tracked by radar as it approached and landed in Wash ington, D.C. Some months later, radar operators at the Wash ington National Airport convinced themselves that precisely this was h appening. On two hectic nights in 1 952, on the basis of radar returns and alleged visual sight­ ings, they scrambled jet fighters to search for the invaders. The chases netted no saucers but the resulting nationwide headlines kept the UFO's high in the public mind. The case was carefully studied by concerned officials including the Robertson panel, but public scientific scrutiny was never invited. An interregnum ensued. While saucers slipped from prominence in the newspapers, a lower stratum of literature, a sort of saucer under­ ground of sensationalizing tabloids and occult magazines, kept the UFO mythology very much alive among devotees who ranged from sincerely interested but poorly informed readers, through fanatics, to a few men­ tally deranged individuals. Few reporters of UFO stories made a cr itical effort to research their mater ial-they couldn't afford to ; the stories might have disappeared ! Charges of obfuscat ion by the Air Force led to the formation of a number of civili an invest igative groups, the most prominent of which was NICAP, formed in 1 95 6 by individu als who were convinced that the Air Force was suppressing relevant data. The poor organ ization and performance of the Air Force investigative project did little to refute such charges. In late November 1 95 7 , within a month after the launching of the first two artificial satellites, the monthly UFO report rate shot up by a factor of seven, i llustrating the "space-flight effect," by which increased publ ic awareness of space activities results in reports of unidentifieds. Saucer enthusiasts were quick to point to the new sightings as evidence of continued UFO activity. Soon after this in itial shock wore off, the number of reports declined, since space activ ities became more com­ monplace and the nation's interests were taken up with a new decade and a new president. The second interregnum was broken only by a second spectacular

H i sto ri cal Perspect ives

19

space accomplis hment in July 1 964, the first spacecraft photography of Mars. M ars h ad long appealed to the public as a planet possibly inhab­ ited by "humanoids ." The photographs of M artian craters on the front page of every newspaper were enough to trigger the space-flight effect once again. This rash of sightings was followed by the northeast power blackout in November 1 965 , which some tabloids attributed to UFO's. The fortuitous re-entry of the Zond IV spacecraft (see Chapter 6, Appendix 3 ) over the United States on M arch 3 , J 968, led to the discovery of two more UFO effects : the "airshi p effect," in which observers con­ ceive of moving lights in a dark sky as connected in a single entity, and the "excitedness effect," in wh ich observers with the poorest observa­ tions are most likely to submit reports. The two most detailed accounts described a cigar-shaped ship with windows, and one witness said it was so close she could have seen people through the windows, had there been people inside! These effects were detailed in the Colorado Report. They m ade it clear how thousands of reports could be made and how newspaper editors h ad a continual stream of UFO reports to play up or down, depend ing on public interest. This condensed history of UFO's contains a number of documented examples of m istakes, hoaxes, preconceptions, rumors, and misinterpre­ tations. All help to explain how the sociological UFO phenomenon oc­ curred. But why did it produce such a marked human response? The so­ ciology of UFO's can tell us something about human nature. Jules Verne said, "What one man can i magine, another man can do." I pro­ pose a corollary: " What one man can fantasize, another man will be­ lieve." This can explain much of the UFO mythology, and is corroborated by new data. When Arnold reported flying saucers in J 94 7, an excited populace reported exactly the same thing; yet we can prove the 80 to 1 00 per cent of their sightings were mistakes and hoaxes. When sci­ ence-fiction stories and films showed the nation's capital approached by saucers in 1 95 2, radar observers there promptly interpreted an episode of unidentified "angels" as the same thing. When organizations were formed claiming that saucers have landed, or that the Air Force was hid­ ing films provi ng UFO's are spaceshi ps, members could be recruited. The number of believers depends on the credibility of the fantasy, wh ich de-

20

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pends on the public mood at the time. It doesn't matter whether the fan­ tasy is true or not; in the dogmas of astrology and witchcraft, the lack of empirical evidence seems to have little effect. No one asks the impor­ tant questions: " Does it work ?" "What is the empirical evidence?" " Is it based on more than hearsay?" "Does the theory predict any effect I can observe for myself?" There are spirits in our subconscious that make us believe. The spirit of paranoia prods, " Bel ieve it because all those scientists are picking on it." The spirit of hypocrisy urges, " Pretend to believe it because it can gain you attention and wealth. " The spirit of conservatism says, "Be­ lieve it because it fits w ith the other things you believe" (or more often, "don't believe it because it doesn't fit with the other things you be­ lieve"). The evangel ical spirit whispers, "Believe it because you want something to defend." The UFO affair, then, may teach us something about the sources of our beliefs. As New York Times science writer Walter Sullivan pointed out in his commentary on the Colorado Report: "One wonders to what extent [conditioning ] affects such basic attitudes as our nationali sm, our theological point of view, and our moral standards. Are they really founded on logic and the ultimate truth?" 4 Was there any signal buried in the noise? Were there any extraordi­ nary flying objects? Scientists tryipg to explain some UFO cases re­ mained perplexed. A curious result emerges if we look at these unex­ plained cases as a group; they diverge quite radically from the popular concept of a "flying saucer." Among them there are no reports of disk­ shaped metal ships, no landing gear, and no evidence of intell igence save for the Socorro case, where a vehicle leaving a curious array of im­ prints in soil was reported near White Sands Proving Ground. Instead, the image created by the puzzling cases is of amorphous glowing objects with dimensions of feet or yards, sometimes recorded by radar and sometimes seen visually, with occasional consistent testimony of auto­ mobile electrical system failures such as in the 1 95 7 Levelland, Texas, case, where many independent witnesses reported such glowing masses. This is as much as one should say by looking at the puzzling cases as a group; there may be fewer than a dozen that involve phenomena mar­ ginally outside the borders of accepted science. This is not a strong statement ; and we cannot ask for a multimillion dollar study on the

H i stori cal Perspect ives

I

21

strength of such vague evidence. It will do no_ good for EFO advocates to list the unsolved cases. Most of the "best" cases suggested by enthusi­ asts in the past turned out to be solvable. In the statistical sample, most of the UFO data are unrel iable, so statistical studies will reveal not EFO's but our conceptions of EFO's. If the proponents of extraordinary phenomena want to be taken seri­ ously, they must pick one case which they agree is strong evidence and invite other scientists to investigate it. We should put the burden of proof on the proponents of EFO's. The only way to convince the scien­ tific community that something strange is going on is to present specific evidence concisely. If the evidence is good, the case will stand up, and the existence of extraord inary phenomena will have to be taken seri­ ously. Addendum, May, 1 9 72 :

I proposed that with publication of the Colo­ rado Report the burden of proof had shifted from skeptics to UFO en­ thusiasts. Condon, in the Colorado Report, concluded that little of scientific value would result from further study of available UFO re­ ports and it appears to date that this has been borne out. At the same time, Condon noted that val id proposals for stud ies of the UFO phe­ nomenon should be seriously considered, and I argued that UFO advo­ cates should find and call attention in the techn ical literature to a single case so strong that it would stand up to scientific scrutiny and be estab­ lished as a real, extraordinary event. A response in this direction is that the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) jour­ nal has recently published detailed accounts of certain UFO reports al­ leged to be particularly strong. It w ill be of interest to follow future scientific assessment of these reports. Note added in proof· In view of growing popularity of television sci­ ence fiction serials, and soon-to-be-published evidence from M ariner 9 that M ars was more clement in the past, one might anticipate a resur­ gence of UFO interest by the date of this book's publ ication.

N OT E S

I . E . U . Condon, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (New York: Bantam Books, 1 969) .

22

B ackg ro u nd

2 . R . M . L. Baker, J r . and M a u d M akemson, A n Introduc tion to A stro­ .

dynamics (New York: Academic Press, 1 967). 3 . Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects (the Roush Report), Hear­

ings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U .S. House of Rep­ resentatives, 90th Congress, 2d Session, July 29, 1 968 (Washington, D.C. : U . S. Government Printing Office, 1 968) . 4. Walter Sullivan, Introduction t o Condon, note 1 , p . xiii.

3 Astronomers' Views on U FO"s FRA N K L I N ROACH

The UFO phenomenon involves astronomers since th e unidentified objects are often seen i n the sky, a domain that astronomers have long considered their own. The speculative interpretation of some UFO's as visitations by nonterrestrial intelligent beings usually causes dismay on the part of astronomers because they appreciate the enormous distances involved in the transport between ports of call. However, the public in­ terest in UFO's h as lured university students into the study of astron­ omy (see Chapter 1 ). I believe that interest in the speculation about pos­ sibl e nonterrestrial origin of UFO's h as stimulated a healthy public probing of the fasci nating question of extraterrestrial intelligent l ife. In 1 96 1 , a multidiscipline group of eleven scientists (referred to as " The Order of the Dolphin") met to discuss the quantitative evaluation of extraterrestri al life, and suggested the formula i n Table 3 - 1 for the Table 3- 1 . T h e " D o l p h i n " Form u l a N=

.!. l

10

N

= N u m ber o f civil izat i o ns cap a b l e of com m u n icat i n g with o u rs = lifetime ( i n years) of each civil izatio n d = D i stance to nearest civil ization ( i n l ig ht-yea rs) ca l c u l ated from N and the know n space density of stars i n the v i c i n ity of t h e s u n .

l

Val ues of l N d

Pessim ist ic 10 1 "We

are alone"

Reaso nab l e

1 ()4

1 03

1 400

Optimistic 1 07 1 08 1 40

23

24

Backg ro u nd ::=:: ::=::

II

TCeti P r o c yon 6 1 Cy g n i

• Eridoni

10 9

c ::>

..

8 :'.! 0 .. ,.. ;: .2'

Sirius

Ci ;:c ·u >

7

.!: 6 c

.5!

�0

Q.

..

Barn a r d ' s Star

5 4

3 2

... .. ;;;

u ::>

�

,.. "

0

0

0 "' 0 ... .. c ..

(a)

(b)

" ... .5! "' 0

ct C e n t o u r i

u

(c)

Figure 3- 1 . Averag e separat io n of sta rs o ne f rom another, with d is­ tances f rom t h e s u n t o nearby stars.

number of civilizations that could be expected to be making an effort to signal some form of information to other neighboring civilizations. 1 Ef­ forts to detect such signaling with large radio receivers ( Project . OZM A at the N ational Radio Astronomy Observatory) from two relatively nearby stars were not successful. The technology of such commun ica­ tion involving the speed of light (or of radio waves) is far easier than the technology of physical travel involving speeds less than the speed of l ight, and I believe most astronomers would _agree that the an alyses of William M arkowitz and of Edward Purcell preclude the possib il ity of interstellar travel 2 (but see Carl Sagan 's discussion in Chapter 1 4) . The distances between stars are con veniently expressed in light-years -a distance unit which has the advantage of carry ing with it a time im­ plication. In Figure 3 - 1 some measured stellar distances are shown , and

Astronomers' V i ews o n UFO's

25

the mean separations are shown graph ically (a) for stars i n the solar ne ighborhood, (b) for stars near the center of our galaxy, and (c) for stars in the center of a rich globular cluster. Note that interstellar travel involves d istances of several light-years for travelers in our part of the galaxy, about one light-year near the center of the galaxy and one or two l ight-months between stars in the center of globular clusters. We may speculate that travel skills have been perfected by globular-cluster cosmonauts, but th is does not help us in the UFO problem since the globular clusters are thousands of light-years from our solar system. H arlow Shapley a has emphasized that interstellar space must i nclude a large number of objects having masses somewhere between that of our giant planet J upiter ( 1 / 1 000 that of the sun) and a very faint star (say 1 / 1 00 that of the sun) . I have attempted to make a quantitative esti­ . mate of the interstellar destiny of these " Lill iputs" in Figure 3-2, a log-log plot of the cumulative number density of objects versus the mass of the indiv idual object. The data for stars are from standard tables of the so -called lum inosity function comb ined with the mass-luminosity re-

-10

..,

'e

u

£.. - 20 E 0

� - 30 0 -; E

�

; ;;; c ..

'

-40

'

l og N • - 26. 8 - 0.9 20 log m '

'

'

"O

'

'

'

'

.. g -50

'

'

a. ..

g

"' 0

'

'

'

'

'

�

Slo

- 60

- 10

0

10

log 10 m (groms)

20

30

Figure 3-2. An attempt to i nterpo l ate the space dens ity of obj ects h av i n g sizes between t h o s e o f g a l actic d ust and st ars. A ny reasonable i nterpo­ l at i o n i n d i cates the p res­ e n ces of " L i l l i p u t i a n " ob­ jects.

26

I

B ackg ro u n d

lationship for stars. At the other end of the mass scale, the amount of galactic dust is based on the measured extinction of starlight by inter­ stellar dust. The interpolated (dashed) curve is used for estimating the space density of objects of intermediate mass. For example, Jupiter has a mass of l .9 x 1 0ao grams, and the interpolated curve gives for the space density of Jupiter-like objects, 2.2 x 1 0 -55 per cubic centimeter, or 0. 1 9 per cubic light-year. The mean _separation of these objects in space is 1 .75 light-years and the closest one to an average observer is 0.97 light-year. If this space density holds for the vicinity of the sun, the nearest Jupiter-like object would be about one-quarter as fa r as the nearby star, Alpha Centauri. Shapley has suggested that Lilliputs some­ what more massive than J upiter should h ave an internal source of heat and might spawn life. Therefore, the nearest l ife outside our solar sys­ tem m ight be found on such Lilliputs rather than on planets in orbits around other stars. If this l ife is "intelligent" could "they" be signaling or visiting us? In the vast domain within a sphere halfway to Alpha Centauri there should be ten objects having a mass of Jupiter, l ,000 of Earth size, 60,000 of moon size, and five million of the size of the asteroid Ceres (mass 7 .5 x 1 022 grams) . The prediction for comets ( assumed mass 1 0 1 8 grams) comes out to be 1 0 1 2. Some time ago J an Oort 4 suggested that the comets we observe may have been deflected from nearly circu­ lar orbits in this vast region between the sun and nearest stars so that they "fall" in toward the sun. In the same way, during billions of years a Lilliput may have been sufficiently perturbed to come much closer to the sun than its original one light-year. If so, this " Planet X" would h ave the view described in Table 3 -2, where our view is given in the . last two lines, for three assumed distances. Space travel to the earth from 25 6 AU (astronomical units ; 256A.U. = 1 00,000 times the distance from the earth to the moon) is certainly possible, but there is one specu­ lation on another speculation here: ( l ) that on a Lilliput intelligent and technologically advanced forms of life will develop, and (2) that such a Lilliput has been perturbed into an orbit close enough to permit travel to Earth and yet large enough to have escaped detection. At least there is plenty of time (some 4 or 5 billion years) for these astronom ical de­ velopments. For example during 4 billion years there would be about

Astro no mers' V i ews o n U FO ' s

27

Table 3-2. Pl anet X ( M as s : 5 x J u p ite r; Diameter: 1 .7 x J u p iter) Featu re

D istance from s u n

U n it

{

A.U. Light-days M i l es

From X B ri g htness of su n m (v is) B rig htness o f J u p iter m (vis) Separation ( J u p ite r and s u n)A rcm i nutes A n g u l a r d iameter of s u n A rcseco nds A n n ual movement of s u n A rcseco n d s

Close

Med i u m

256. 0 1 .5 7.4 x 1 01 0

2560 15 2.4 x 1 01 1

- 1 4 .5 6.4 70 7.5 1 37

- 9. 5 1 1 .4

23

From Earth B r i g ht ness of X

m (v is)

13

Pe riod of revol utio n

years

4 1 00

7 0.75 1 0. 2

1 30,000

Fa r 25,600 1 50 2.4 X 1 01 2

- 4.5 1 6. 4 0.7 0. 075 0.32

33 4 ,000,000

30,000 circuits of the sun by a Lilliput having an aphelion of 60,000 AU and a perihelion of 2,500 AU. The lesson to be learned from th is astronomical time scale is that we must be cautious in placing technological limits on other civil izations which are older than ours by some period like a megayear (one million years). " M egaphysics" may even transcend Markowitz' metaphysics. What are the views of astronomers on the subject of UFO's? There is no single statement that represents any degree of unanimity among as­ tronomers. The physical and temporal nature of our part of the M ilky Way galaxy is generally accepted, since it is based on careful measure­ ments repeated and cross-checked, but the significance of UFO's will be debated. One view is that all could be readily explained as "natural" phenomena if we had better data. The other extreme leads to the hy­ pothesis of extraterrestrial v isitations. I remember a social gathering early in the Colorado Project, wh ich I worked on, when Dr. Hynek summed up his attitude with the words " I a m puzzled. " M y reaction was " I a m curious," and this led m e into the UFO study. Later my curiosity developed into an interest in the general problem of extraterrestrial l ife (quite apart from possible visitations)

28

Backg ro u n d

and I was especially intrigued by the late Otto Struve's interest in the problem which developed from his work on the rotation of stars. M any astronomers would agree with Gerard Ku iper, who said: I should correct a statement that has been made that scientists have shied away from U FO reports for fear of ridicule . . . . A scientist chooses his field of in q uiry because he believes it holds real prom ise. If later h is choice proves wrong, he will feel very badly and try to sharpen his criteria before he sets out again. Thus, if society fi nds that most scientists have not been at­ tracted to the U FO problem, the explanation must be that they have not been impressed with the U FO reports.s

Astronomers view the sky frequently, and it is to be expected that UFO's or " UBO's" (unidentified bright objects) would be observed inci­ dentally in the course of their systematic observation by optical or pho­ tometric techniques. Thornton Page has made an interesting analysis which summarizes the fractional sky coverage by the battery of some 300 active professional astronomical telescopes in regular use on the surface of the earth (see Table 3 -3) . He finds the interesting result that a 30-degree cone of sky centered on the zenith has a coverage of only 1 .5 per cent (see the last entry i n column 6 of Table 3 -3). Table

3-3. Astro n o m i cal tel escopes of t h e worl d

Cl ass of tel escope La rg e S ch m i dt s M e d i u m S c h m idts Small Schmidts S m it hso n ian Network A st ro m et ri c Oth e r (p hoto o nly) Total cove rag e

N umber n

S o l id ang l e of o b se rved fie l d ( sq uare deg rees)

No. of p h otos pe r yea r

Exposu re S ky t covera g e (nC * ) ( h r)

3 27 17

36.0 20.0 1 5. 0

3000 3000 2000

0.400 0 . 1 00 0 . 1 00

0.005 1 8 0. 00649 0. 00204

12 39

1 00.0 1 .0

5000 1 000

0. 002 0 . 1 00

0. 00048 0.0001 6

21 1

0.1

500

0 . 5 00

0.0002 1 0.01 456

Sou rce : Adapt ed fro m Thor nton Page, " P h otog ra p h i c S ky Coverag e f o r t h e D etect ion of U F O ' s, " S cien ce 1 60 ( 1 968) :1 258. Copyr ig ht 1 968 b y t h e A m e r i c a n As­ soc iat i o n for the Ad vancement of Science. • n C = fract ion a l coverag e of a 30-deg ree c o n e ce nte red o n t h e zenith by n te le­ scopes.

Ast ronome rs' Views on UFO's

I

29

The following list shows other types of photographic and photoelec­ tric sky coverage, and the scientists investigating them. Astronom ical photography ( Page) Meteor networks Prairie Network (U.S. A.) ( Page, Ayer) Canadian Network Czechoslovak Network The Tombaugh Search (Tombaugh) For terrestrial "moons" For trans-Neptunian planets All-sky auroral cameras (Ayer, Rothberg) Airglow scanning photometers (Ayer, Roach) Of particular interest is the systematic survey made by Cly de Tombaugh (as yet unpublished) in searches for terrestrial moons and trans-Nep­ tunian planets. It is probable that he would have found any Lill iput as close as 250 astronomical units. Table 3 -4 shows a comparison of the · Sm ithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Prairie Network for the detec­ tion of bright meteors and the airglow photometer network used during the International Geophysical Year (J uly 1 95 7 - December 1 95 8) . These records should be exam ined for UBO's. Table

3-4. Com pariso n of P ra i r ie N etwork and ai rg l ow photometers

Featu re N u m b er of stat ions N u m b e r of i nstruments A rea of E a rt h ' s s u rface " covered" F ract ion o f E art h ' s s u rface " cove red , " F Li m it i ng mag n itude (fixed) L i m i t i ng mag nitude ( mov i ng) Fraction of t i m e ope rat i n g , f Total cove rag e (fractiona l ) o, rec i p rocal *

P rai rie Network

A irglow photometers ( l . G .Y.)

16 64

25 25

1 , 500 , 000 km2

454, 000 km2 *

0.0029 +4 -4 0.23 0. 0006 7 1 500

0.0004 3 3 0. 1 0. 00004 250,000

Assum i ng a depth of detection of 1 0 km

30

Bac kg ro u n d

My own research for more than three decades has been involved with the study of the light of the night sky and of the airglow. In general, the records are not examined for UBO's. Although it can be stated that over a considerable period of time no UBO's were reported, it definitely cannot be stated that UBO's were absent from the records. In the study of the photometric records the stars are underdrawn (their l ight omitted as in Figure 3-3), and any UBO wh ich gave a starlike deflection would be m issed. During the Colorado Project, Frederick Ayer 6 supervised the detailed study of one night of observations at H aleakala Observa­ tory in H awai i in wh ich the analysts were instructed not to underdraw any deflections at all. All starl ike deflections were then compared with the positions of known stars and planets. Somewhat to our surprise, on N

E

s

w

N

Z e ro C u rve

Figure 3-3. Typ ical photomet ric reco rd a ro u n d t h e s ky show i ng deflect i o ns d u e to i n d ivid u a l stars ( eta Ursae M aj o r i s, a lpha Col u m b ae a n d alpha A r i etis) to t h e M i l ky Way ( M . W. ) , and to the zod i acal l i g ht (Z. L.)

Astro no mers' V i ews on UFO's 900 BOO

700 600 500

• ..

+ Toto l l n t1n 1 1 t y -Toto l I n t e n s i t y L111 Zodiacal L igllt a n d I nte grated Sta r l ight ./ Stor Iden t i f i e d But Not N u m be red Numl>•,•d hol• ,.,. Slo,• Willl Mognil11d1 G,.,,,., Tllon + .1 M i l k y Woy �

+ ••

�

+

+

31

HALEAKALA I Holeokolo Ob11rvotory , H o w o i l

Plot Of Alrg l ow S c o n n i n g Photometer Ooto

Ftb. 1 1 - 12 , 1966

S l d e re o l Time 1 37" • Fi l te r Tron1mi11ion 5300A A lmucontor E l e vation 15 •

Mi lky Woy +

400

300

I/)

>

0

in

26

• 1 000 .. •

c

m �

900 Hawai ian Stondord Time

2350h

B OO

700

IBO

210

240

270

300

30 0 330 True Azimuth

90

120

150

IBO

Figure 3-4 . Phot o metric record l i ke that in F i g u re 3-3 show i n g s i g n a l s l a­ b e l ed UBO n ot d u e to known astro n o m ic al objects. Ad apted from Con d o n , Sci­ en tific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects.

two of the records near midnight there were unmistakable deflections not due to known astronomical objects (Figure 3 -4). An attempt to identify the objects responsible for the deflections as a suborbital missile cross­ ing the Pacific from the west coast (Vandenberg Air Force Base) to the Kwaj alein area was unsuccessful. The lessons to be learned from this are: ( I ) it i s important to distin­ guish carefully between the l ac k of reports and the lack of systematic

32

Backg rou nd

search, and (2) although it is possible to say someth ing about what the UBO's on the records are not, this does not provide information on wh at they are. J . Allen Hynek 1 has introduced the useful idea of a two-dimensional plot of UFO reports (see Figure 4- 1 ) from which we can judge the po­ tential value of an investigation in depth. His coordinates are "credibil­ ity" and "strangeness" : if both are high, the sighting should be followed up ; if either is low, energy and time should be conserved by filing the report away. The photometric readings mentioned above should rate very high in credibility, but it is difficult to know how to evaluate the "strangeness. " Of course it is strange that we can't identify the deflections, but the fas­ cinating details that often accompany visual sightings cannot be ob­ tained from an impersonal galvanometer record, which tells us only that the unidentified object was as bright as a second-magnitude star. (Th is suggests a correlation between "strangeness" and the personality of the reporter.) Con clusi o n s

My conclusions must be considered as entirely independent of my rather sm all contribution to the Colorado Report, although I am natu­ rally influenced by my participation in the investigation. I th ink it likely that there are many extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy, but I think the evidence of UFO sightings does not support the hypothesis of visitations by these extraterrestrials. Direct exploration of the planet Mars before the end of this century should answer the question of life-simple or complex, now or in the astronomical past-on that planet and indicate the relationsh ip between the development of life forms and the physical environment. Interstellar travel poses problems not soluble with our present tech­ nology, or even with developments over the next century. I leave open, however, the nature of the technology based on what I have called "meg­ aphysics. " Travel between the earth and a hypothetical Lill iput in an eccentric orbit is an intriguing idea. I recommend that astronomers dur­ ing the next megennium keep their eyes open and strive, along with all

Astro no mers' V i ews on U FO's

our terrestrial companions, to make the quantity mula even greater than a megenn ium.

L

33

in the Dolphin for­

N OT E S

1 . A general treatment of the '' Dolphi n Formula" may be found in I . S. Shklovskii and C . Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1 966), Chap. 29. 2. William M arkowitz, "The Physics and Metaphysics of U FO's," Science 1 5 7 ( 1 967): 1 274; Edward Purcell, " Radio Astronomy and Communication through Space," reprinted in A. G . W. Cameron's book on Interstellar Com­ munications: Collec tion of Reprints and Original Contributions (New York: Benj amin, 1 963) . 3 . Harlow Shapley, "Crusted Stars and Self-Heati ng Planets," Matematica y Fisica Teorjca 1 4 ( 1 962) : 69 ; see also p. 60 of Shapley's book Of Stars and Men (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 95 8) . 4. J a n Oort, " Empi rical Data o n the Origin of Comets," from The Moon, Meteorites and Comets, ed. B. M iddlehurst and G. P. Kuiper (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 963). 5. Gerard Kuiper, prese ntation to the. Arizona Academy of Science Meet­ ing, April 29, 1 967 ; reprinted as Appendix C of the Colorado Report. 6. Section VI, Chap. 9, of the Colorado Report. 7. See, for example, his review of "The Condon Report and U FO's," Bul­ letin of the A tomic Scien tists, 25 ( 1 969) : 39.

PA RT

II OBSE RVATIO N S

4 Twenty - one Years of U FO Reports J . ALLEN HYN E K

My role here today is that o f reporter ; to report t o you on m y score o r so years of experience with UFO reports (note that I do not say UFO's, for I myself have never had a UFO experience) and with those who make such reports, from this and many other countries. I was asked in 1 948, as an as­ tronomer then at Ohio State Un iversity, and thus geograph ically near the Wri ght- Patterson AFB, to review the UFO reports recei ved by the Ai r Force and to determine how many of them origi nated from misperceptions of astronom ical obj ects or events. This consulting role continued across the years and gave me the chance to mon itor the flow of UFO reports submit­ ted to the A i r Force, and to observe the A i r Force handl ing of the problem as first one, then another officer took charge of Project Bluebook. As reporter of the U FO scene, I am remi nded of the old dictum of the reporter: find out Who, What, Where, When, and Why. I wi ll have no diffi­ culty in dealing with the Who, What, Where, and When, for that means sim­ ply dealing with facts -particularly with the incontroverti ble fact that UFO reports exist, and that the time and location of the reported event is gener­ ally known, as well as the identity of the wi tnesses. The " Why" I shall leave to other sci entists, but I shall challenge thei r ex­ plan ations if they are not conversant with the Who, What, Where, and When. I am very weary of pontifications by those who have not done field­ or home-wo rk, so to speak. Indeed, I would like to say a word about scientific methodology as it per37

38

Obse rvat ions

tains to this problem. I have discussed this at length with the noted Cana­ dian philosopher of science, Thomas Goudge. "One of the most interesti ng facets of the UFO question to me," Goudge writes, " is its bearing on the problem of how science advances. Roughly I would say that a necessary condition of scientific advance is that allowance must be made for (a) genuinely new empirical observations and (b) new ex­ planation schemes, including new basic concepts and new laws." Goudge notes that throughout history any successful explanation scheme, including twentieth-century physics, acts somewhat like an "establi shment" and tends to resist genuinely new empirical observations, particularly when they have not been generated w ithin the accepted framework of that scheme- as, for instance, the reluctance to accept meteorites, fossils, the circulation of the blood, and, in our ti me, ball lighting. H i story is replete with such examples. When the establishment does accept such new observations it often tends to assimilate them into the going framework-as, for instance, the attempt to adm it the existence of meteorites as stones that had been struck by light­ ni ng. " Hence," Goudge concludes, "the present establishment view that UFO phenomena are either not really scientific data at all (or at any rate, not data for physics) or else are nothing but misperceptions of fa­ miliar objects, events, etc. To take this approach is surely to reject a neces­ sary condition of scientific advance." 1 We will never know whether UFO reports represent genuinely new empi rical observations if we continue the type of logical fallacy illus­ trated by the Air Force analysis of a radar-visual UFO report from Kirtland Ai r Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1 95 7 (see Se­ lected UFO Cases, above) . Two witnesses in the control tower reported at 1 1 :00 P. M . that an object, which looked (through binoculars) l ike a lighted, up-ended automobile, came within 200 feet of the ground when it disappeared behind a fence in a highly restricted area, easily visible from the control tower, then rose abruptly at very high angular rate and disappeared. It was observed visually for about six mi nutes, about half of th at time through binoculars, and tracked in part by radar. The report of the Air Force officer who investigated th is case, which is in the Blue­ book file, states: The two sources are Airways Operations Special ists with a total of 2 3 years experience. Both were on duty in the control tower at Kirtl and A i r Force

Twen ty-o ne Years of UFO Repo rts

39

Base when the sight:ng was made-both appeared to be mature and well poised individuals, apparently of well above average intelligence, and tem­ peramentally well q ualified for the demanding req uirements of control tower operators. Although completely cooperative and willing to answer any ques­ tion, both sources appeared to be slightly embarrassed that they could not identify or offer an explanation of the object which they are unshakably convi nced they saw. I n the opinion of the interviewer, both sources are completely competent and reliable.

Project Bluebook explained th is sighting as th at of an aircraft; and gave th e fol lowing specific reasons: I . The observers are considered competent and reliable sources and in the opinion of the interviewer actually sa w an object they could not identify. 2 . The object was tracked on a radar scope by a competent operator. 3 . The object does not meet identification criteria for any other phenome­ non. .

So, the witnesses were sol id, the radar operator competent, and the ob­ ject un identifiable as any other phenomenon ; therefore the object had to be an aircraft. Clearly, if such reasoning is appl ied to all UFO reports we can hardly expect to find out whether any genuinely new empirical observations exist to be expl ained. Schroedinger, the father of quantum mechanics, wrote: "The first requirement of a scientist is that he be cu­ rious; he must be capable of being astonished, and eager to find out. " Perhaps he should have added, "and be ready to exam ine data even when presented in a bewildering and confusing form." There is much in the UFO problem to be astonished about-and much to be confused about, too. Such confusion is understandable. Over the past twenty years I have had so many experiences with crackpots, visionaries, and religious fanatics that I hardly need be reminded of people who espouse the idea of UFO's as visitors from outer space for their own pecul iar purposes. You will note th at I say "espouse the idea, " not "make UFO reports." Very rarely do members of the lunatic fringe make UFO reports. There are many reasons for this ; primarily it is simply that they are incapable of composing an articulate, factual, and obj ective report.

40

Observat ions

In addition to being fully aware of the cultists, and how they muddy the waters even though they don't generate UFO sightings, I am also well aware of the widespread ignorance, on the part of many, of astro­ nomical objects, high-altitude balloons, special air missions, mirages, and special meteorological effects, and of people's willingness to ascribe their views of such things to the presence of something mysterious. These people, in contrast to the crackpots, are far more of a problem because they do generate UFO reports which represent a high noise level-so high, in fact, that many who have not looked carefully into the matter feel that all U FO reports stem from such m isperceptions. In actual fact it is relatively simple for an experienced investigator to sort out and quickly eliminate virtually all of the misperception cases. It is a pity that people so often are not well-informed, objective, and accurate reporters; since 1 948 I have become only too famil iar with UFO reports spawned by Venus, twinkling stars, aircraft, and the like. Some eighteen years before the Condon committee was formed I was al­ ready aware that the great majority of UFO reports are nothing more than misperceptions by the uninformed. Of course, these misperceptions must be deleted before any serious study of the UFO question can begin. From this point on, I am speaking only of UFO reports which remain unexplained by trained investigators ; only then are we truly dealing wi th something that is unidentified by people capable of making an identification. In short, an original UFO report must pass through a "narrow band-pass filter" before it qualifies as worthy material for sci­ entific study, the objective of which is to determine whether any genu­ inely new empirical observations exist. Only those reports which surv ive the running of this gauntlet can qualify. An objection to this approach immed iately arises: Aren't we just re­ jecting everything but the tail-end of the distribution curve of hu man reactions to visual stimuli? I firmly agreed with this view during my first years of association with the U FO problem , but now I question it. We can take the position that we are dealing with the vagaries of human perception only if we are dealing with a homogeneous set of observa­ tions. For instance, the distribution curve of fruit size in an apple or­ chard would have a significant tail at the large-fruit end if measure-

Twenty-o ne Years of UFO Reports

41

ments of watermelons on the ground were included without noting the structural differences between apples and watermelons. Let me define the UFO phenomenon, the existence of which we wish to determine or deny, as that phenomenon described by reports of vi­ sual or instrumental observations of lights or objects in the sky (or near, or on the ground) whose presence, trajectories, and general character are not explainable in verifiable physical terms, even after intensive study . The Condon Report furnishes us with many examples.2 For years I could not accept the idea that a genuine UFO phenome­ non m ight exist, preferring to hold that it was all a craze based on hoaxes and m isperceptions. As my review of UFO reports continued, and as the reports grew in number to be of statistical significance, I be­ came concerned that the whole subject didn't evapor3:te as one would expect a craze or fad to do. Also, the phenomenon of UFO reports per­ sisted not only in this country but in many areas over the world ; if there were some worldwide compulsion to report strange things, why are only these particular types of strange reports preferred from the infinite uni­ verse of all possible strange reports? The degree of "strangeness" is certainly one di mension of a filtered UFO report. The higher the strangeness index the more the information aspects of the report defy explanation in ordinary physical terms. An­ othe r significant dimension is the probability that the report refers to a real event; in short, did the strange th ing really happen? And what is the probability that the witnesses described an actual event? This credi­ bility index represents a different evaluation, not of the report in this instance, but of the witnesses, and it involves different criteria. These two di mensions can be used as coordinates to plot a point for each UFO report on a useful diagram. The criteria I have used in estimating these coordinates are : For strangeness: How many indiv idual items, or information bits, does the report contain which demand explanation, and how difficult is it to explain them, on the assumption that the event occurred? For credibility: If there are several witnesses, what is their collective objectiv ity? How well do they respond to tests of the ir ability to gauge angular sizes and angular rates of speed? How good is their eyesight? What are their medical histories? What technical training have

Observations

42

they had? What is their general reputation in the com munity? What is their reputation for publicity-seeking, for veracity? What is their occu­ pation and how much responsibility does it involve? No more than quarter-scale credibility is to be assigned to one-witness cases. If one now plots the strangeness (S) of a report against the credibility ( P) of the witnesses-that is, the probab ility that the event happened more or less as stated-one obtains a diagram which may be called the strangeness-probability diagram. An example of such a diagram con­ structed for some cases I have personally investigated is shown in F ig­ ure 4 - 1 . Plotted points represent only those UFO reports, of course, that have passed through the m isperception and hoax fi lter. Clearly, the most provocative and potentially i mportant UFO reports are those in the upper right-hand region of such a diagram, representing reports that contain many information elements and have a h igh probability rating. p 5 1-

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